


Safe & Sound

by Hagar



Series: Stubborn, Silent and Grey [4]
Category: NCIS: Los Angeles
Genre: Case Fic, Coffee, Gen, Israeli character(s), Locked Room Mystery, Novella, POV Multiple, Snark, Spies & Secret Agents, Tea, Undercover Missions, profilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-01
Updated: 2013-04-01
Packaged: 2017-12-07 04:46:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 22,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/744401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hagar/pseuds/Hagar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a mountain cave in Afghanistan there are ten spies from four countries and seven organizations. One of them is a mole.</p><p>Sam and G need to figure out who.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Seeking Answers

**Author's Note:**

> The visual inspiration for the setting of this story came from [this](http://new-tattoos-pictures.blogspot.co.il/2010/05/amazing-village-in-afghanistan.html) photo set. 
> 
> Love and gratitude to N. (all things military and tactical) and Sailor Sol (betaing and de-blocking). This story wouldn’t have happened without them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Teshuva” (alt. transliteration “tshuva”), from the root meaning “return, reply”; literally meaning “answer” or “solution”, also meaning “repentance” and the process thereof.

_ “Keep on praying, they say _  
_ The deaf one upstairs hears everyone _  
_ I’m still waiting” _

[Seeking Teshuva](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dp5OliXBSzc), HaYehudim

 

* * *

 

Zaranj Airport was nothing special after you’d spent a couple of years in the more interesting parts of West Asia and North Africa – for the value of ‘Interesting’ used in ancient Chinese curses. As it was, Zaranj Airport was yet another patch of pressed mud, with a security force that was the source of trouble as often as not. It was a good thing that the DEA flights typically had their own security, Nate thought as he watched the helo land from inside the car. It made the three Humvees slightly less conspicuous.

The helo touched down.

Callen and Sam had also had the sense to change from whatever they’d worn wherever it was they’d arrived from – somewhere in Europe, Nate reasoned, as he knew they’d arrived to Qabul from Istanbul – into similar gear to the DEA agents. So far, so good. Now all they needed was to not acquire a tail, but that was what the Special Operations Marines were for.

Nate rolled down the car’s window, allowing Callen and Sam to see his face. They made a beeline for the car.

“Long time, no see,” Sam said as he and Callen settled into the back seat.

“Well, I don’t know about that, Sam,” Callen replied. “It’s only been four months, this time.”

“Practically yesterday,” Sam replied dryly.

Corporal Hayes in the driver’s seat was too well-trained to so much as blink.

“I missed you guys, too,” Nate told the two agents. Meanwhile, Hayes got the car moving, keeping it equidistance from the front and the rear ones.

“I don’t suppose you know what’s going on,” Callen said.

“Or is that too much to hope for,” Sam completed.

“You guys do know you sound like you’re in interrogation, right?” Nate asked. The question was semi-rhetorical. The guys did that when they were in a mood. They’d probably just spent about 24 hours in various flights and airports, having been pulled out of a different job, given no briefing about this one, and probably nearly knocked out of the sky by sandstorms on the way from Qabul. Nate expected the foul mood and the antagonistic behaviors, but he figured the guys could use the check. Judging by their expressions, they did.

He continued. “The short version is, several Marines were hurt in a fire incident the day before yesterday.”

“Is there any particular reason that this warrants immediate NCIS attention?” Callen asked, putting a slight emphasis on the word _immediate._ Marines injured in a fire incident in this region was hardly a matter for criminal investigation, let alone the more subtle skill set that OSP brought to the table.

“Several,” Nate replied. “The incident in question was the culmination of a long-term international effort against weapon trafficking.”

“Any names we should recognize?” Callen asked.

“Yes. Starting with Oleksiy Shevchenko.”

Callen and Sam exchanged a look.

“Big game,” Sam said.

“Yes,” Nate acknowledged.

Everything else went unsaid. The breadth of intelligence required to weave a net around someone like Shevchenko; the kind of bait required to lure him in, and to sell the trap; the number of people involved in an operation of this magnitude.

“Did we get him?” Sam asked.

Because of course Sam wouldn’t refer to the operation as a _success_ if US soldiers had gotten hurt.

“Yes,” Nate confirmed. “Alive, even. But extraction has been put on hold until the fire incident has been resolved.”

Callen and Sam very carefully did not exchange another look. Nate only recognized the subtle shift in both their postures because he knew them well, on top of being trained for this. There was no doubt that they heard what he didn’t say.

Somewhere in a small band of highly vetted intelligence personnel, they had a security breach.

 

* * *

 

It was a tense drive towards the mountains. There were far too many things that could go wrong with an operation as complex as the capture of Oleksiy Shevchenko, particularly considering the kind of international effort likely involved in capturing an Ukrainian businessman on the Afghani-Iranian border. Nate had brought them some reports to read, but there was only so much that could be brought out of base camp. Afghanistan had its more and less safe areas, and this was one of the latter rather than the former.

The mountains rose sharply, straight out of the plains, with no hills by way of a warning. Nate’s files told G that there were two Marine SF platoons camped at the foot of the mountains. The two other Humvees stayed there; theirs continued up the trail. Wheels only got them so far, though. The trail got narrower and narrower, and they had to hike the final leg of the climb. G didn’t need to search Sam’s expression in the fading light to know that he was happy to be out of the vehicle. He eyed Nate carefully out of the corner of his eye. Nate was clumsy in the field, last G had actually known him – as much as G had ever known him – but that he was still alive, a year and a half after Hettie had first sent him out on his own, was proof enough that that was no longer true. Still, it was reassuring to see Nate hike easily next to the Marines, Sam and him.

It was almost full dark when they finally made it to a gate fitted between the boulders, enclosed from above as well as from the side. There was no actual lighting on the gate’s other side, which surprised G none at all. This kind of a camp would try to advertise its location as little as possible. Sticklights were placed strategically for safety, marking off obstacles.

The stars were suddenly invisible, indicating that there were camo nets stretched overhead – thermal nets, too, if these people were serious about staying hidden. At first he wasn’t sure what he was looking at, but then he recognized the darker, rectangular shadows set in the rock faces rising around them. There were dwellings here, fitted into the natural rock, and probably abandoned in one or the other instances of conflict in the region. G had to hand it to whoever had scouted out this place. It was pretty damn good, as mountain hideouts went.

Still. “You have got to be kidding me,” he said. “We are actually going to hide in a cave, in a mountain, in Afghanistan.”

“More like a whole village of caves, actually,” Nate said.

“One access point?” Sam asked.

“Yes,” Nate confirmed.

Sam grunted his approval.

There were also men in the shadows. Marines, judging by the way they carried themselves. One of the men, however, was not a Marine. Male, average height, average build. His voice, when he spoke, had a Midwest accent.

“Hi, Nate. Safe drive?”

“Yes, Ty, thank you.”

“You cut it close on the light.”

“Yes, well.”

“All right.” Ty rotated his head to noticeably glance at Sam and G. “How about we save the introductions for inside, where we have some light?”

“Sounds like a good idea,” G said easily.

Ty nodded, another exaggerated gesture meant to be easily discernible in the mostly-darkness, and made towards what G thought was a doorway. No light spilled out: there were probably blackout curtains hung on the inside.

“Handler,” Nate explained in a low voice as they made their way towards the same doorway. “DEA.”

“I assume not all assets were American?” Sam asked.

“Only one out of three, but by the final stages...” Nate let the sentence trail before continuing. “It made more sense to centralize some things.”

“How long has this been going on?” G asked.

“A while,” Nate said. “We’ve been out here a couple of weeks.”

“Just how mixed a company is ‘we’?” Sam asked.

“Four nationalities, seven agencies.”

“Great,” G said. “No need to ask what’s for dinner.”

Sam huffed. “Alphabet soup.”

 

* * *

 

There were no torches in the room behind the blackout curtain. The light came from several rooms inside. Light wasn’t the only thing that drifted across. Human voices did, too, as well as the scent of some stew. MREs were designed for short periods and intense physical activity. For anything else, you tried to not rely on them as much. Base camp would have a field kitchen, Sam knew, but he didn’t expect more than field stoves up here.

Most of those rooms weren’t used, Sam noted as they walked towards the source of the light and food. The white rock of the caves was bare, without any of the rugs and curtains the original dwellers had to have used. There was also a noticeable lack of signs of recent habitation. Sam counted rooms, noted the height of the ceiling, and compared these to the outwards size of the compound. The camp was far bigger than strictly needed, even if there were as many intel officers here as Sam thought. It made sense to leave a ring of empty rooms facing outside.

His estimate about the size of their party was confirmed when they finally arrived at the temporary living room. Eight people sat on mats and pillows, seven men and a woman. Adding up Nate, that was nine intelligence officers, not including G and himself.

One of the men – mid-thirties, Caucasian mix – smiled at them and stood up for a handshake. “Hello again.”

His voice was familiar. G gave him a friendly smile – completely fake, not that it was possible to tell – and stepped closer. “Ty. I’m Callen.”

“Hanna,” Sam said, to try and make G’s last-name-only stand out a little less in what was obviously a fake-first-name company. “Nice to meet you.”

The man sitting on Ty’s one side also smiled and leaned forward to offer his hand as they sat down. He was slightly older and had more Anglo-Saxon in him. He also looked like he’d been on site less time and his smile was more controlled.

“Clark,” the man introduced himself.

“Clark arrived just yesterday,” Nate said. “He’s here for our guest.”

Clark’s smile remained perfectly neighbourly, the way that only a professional interrogator could. That certainly explained why he was a newer arrival than Ty.

“And that’s Corey,” Nate continued, indicating the wire-thin Hispanic on Ty’s other side. Corey’s face sported some cuts – cleaned and bandaged – and the bulk of some more bandages was visible under his shirt, once Sam looked for it. “He brought our Mexican friends to the wedding.”

Drugs and guns often funded one another, and opioids were a prime export of this region. This was the reason for the regular DEA presence, and the reason for the DEA handler. Sam nodded politely.

“Scott,” said the man on Ty’s other side. Late thirties, another Caucasian mix – and another CIA agent, unless Sam missed his mark.

“Klaus,” said a middle-aged man, visibly older than the others. He looked Germanic, and had the accent to match. He was sitting next to the only woman in their company, who matched him for age, apparent ethnicity and – when she spoke – accent.

“Anke”, she said.

Sam looked at the way they sat relative to one another, and decided that this was far from their first time working together.

“If it needs fixing, bring it to Anke,” Nate said.

Everyone laughed. It was relaxed and familiar-sounding.

“Duly noted,” G said.

“Nika,” said one of two guys Sam had pegged as Slavic and probably Russian.

“Stas,” said the other guy shortly. His accent was thicker, and he seemed more suitable for brawls and door breaking than his compatriot. He had cuts and bandages, too, though he seemed to have gotten away more easily than Corey.

Corey flashed Stas a grin. “Stas brought the groom to the wedding.”

Another UC, then, which figured: he and Corey must’ve gotten injured in the same incident, which was probably the same one that had put two Marines out of commission.

That closed the circle of those present. They were missing a UC: Nate had mentioned three UCs, and only two were present. Other than the interrogator and the missing UC, Sam counted a tech, a profiler, a handler, two UCs and three others – who, Sam decided, were most likely intel analysts.

“We’re missing our third asset,” Ty said apologetically. “She’s been under the longest, and she doesn’t tend to show up for family meals, much.”

 _She._ And if Corey brought the drug buyers and Stas brought Shevchenko and his merch, that left only one company the missing asset could’ve been embedded in. On the spectrum of crazy undercover assignments, this was as up there as it got.

“Nadin had been embedded here since before we needed an asset for this op,” Nate said, confirming Sam’s assessment.

“That’s one hell of a deep cover,” G remarked neutrally.

Corey flashed him one of those grins. “You would know. You’re _the_ Callen, right?”

“ _The_ Callen?” Sam asked, amused. G seemed taken aback, for once.

“Used to work for us, used to work for the big brother,” Corey said, gesturing at Scott as he said ‘big brother’.

“Bit of a legend all over the place,” Scott added, smiling slightly. “Frankly, I thought you didn’t really exist.”

“That’s because I don’t,” G deadpanned.

That caused another round of laughter.

 

* * *

 

The kits of gear that Sam and G had lifted on their way had maglights, thankfully. The party split up after dinner, each group headed towards its hole.

“The caves aren’t all interconnected,” Nate explained. He shined his maglight on the stairs and started up, watching G’s and Sam’s beams to make sure they were with him. “The Marines don’t like us spreading too much, so this is the compromise we worked out.”

“I don’t see anyone else walking with us,” Sam said pointedly.

Everyone else had paired off for the night, but Nate was walking with just G and Sam. He expected them to call it out, really.

“Looks like an inter-agency no-fraternization policy,” G said lightly.

Nate expected this line of commentary, too. The Germans and Russians didn’t have a choice of compatriots, and the other Americans had split up according to agency.

G continued. “Unless you’re sharing with the mysterious Nadin?”

“Yes, actually,” Nate said. He picked the passage turning left, waving the beam in an arc to emphasize how narrow the trail was up there.

“Anything we need to know?” Sam asked.

“Don’t stand too close when you wake her up,” Nate replied blandly. He pushed open the door to their set of caves. “One room in the front, two in the back, three in the middle,” he said in a hushed voice as they stepped in. Expectedly, there was no light inside.

“Left side is yours,” said Nadin’s voice from a point that was _probably_ not the right passage. “Back right room is mine.”

G’s and Sam’s beams scanned the room. Nate wasn’t surprised that Nadin successfully avoided them.

“Duly noted,” G said as he continued scanning. “You didn’t happen to lay any landmines around this place, did you?”

Nate really shouldn’t have been surprised that Nadin deadpanned in reply: “Ground’s a bit hard.” He resisted the urge to massage his temple. He didn’t really want to know what Sam’s expression looked like right now. “I’m so glad that’s your reason,” he said.

“Also lacking in landmines,” Nadin replied shortly.

“Let me guess: Israeli,” Sam said.

“What ever gave you this idea?” Nadin asked.

“No manners, trigger happy, and also, you think you’re funny,” G replied promptly.

“Also the complete crazy of sending a deep cover female agent in this region,” Sam added. “Takes Israeli balls to do that.”

 _Good American, bad American,_ Nate thought wryly. Force of habit; both of them knew better than to think it’d work.

“I bet your girlfriend thinks you’re cute,” Nadin answered without missing a beat, voice still expressionless.

“I’m single,” Sam said.

“I was talking to the other guy.”

“Married,” G said promptly.

Nadin snorted. “You’re married like I’m Osama Bin Laden.”

They could go like that all night, if Nate let them; he wasn’t going to. “As fascinating as this conversation is. Guys, this is Nadin, as I’m sure you realized by now. Nadin, these are Callen and Hanna. They’re also NCIS agents.”

“Good thing I could be moving out tomorrow.”

“Define ‘moving out’,” Nate said, very carefully.

“Clark is going to hate this,” she said.

Nate was pretty sure he didn’t imagine the faint note of glee in her voice. That, together with ‘moving out’ suggesting someone arriving that Nadin would prefer to share with and Clark being the only interrogator on camp, summed up to: “I take it that your people are sending an interrogator.”

“She should arrive tomorrow, yes.”

Definitely gleeful about something. “She?” Nate asked.

“Oh yeah. Looks like this is rating Iris.” Nadin stepped into Sam’s beam, all 5’3” of her in her oversized clothes, long black hair braided away. “Sleep well.” And she stepped into the darkness again.

Just like Nadin, to wrap a bombshell like that, a dramatic entrance and an equally dramatic exit in one. It was probably meant to create an impression, but it also allowed Nate a few seconds to process the idea of Iris Raz showing up the next day.

“And you’re _sleeping_ with her,” G said, loudly enough to be deliberately overheard.

“I don’t think you get to criticize other people’s Israeli girlfriends, G,” Sam said.

That sounded like there was a story worth hearing, there, but that could wait. “First thing’s first, I am not _sleeping with_ Nadin. This was just the way quarters worked out.” Also Nadin needed a gentle hand, which was precisely why Nate wasn’t going to say that out loud where she was guaranteed to hear him.

“Who’s Iris?” Sam asked, mercifully focusing on the case aspect.

“Mossad profiler,” Nate sighed. “She consults on a lot of cases, but I don’t know anyone who’s met her in the field.” Or possibly anyone who’d met her and who would testify to that – or who’d known that they met her, really. The Mossad excelled at appearing to have far more people than they actually did.

“How long has she been around?” Sam asked.

“Oldest case I heard she was on is five, six years old,” Nate replied. Sam and G could work out the math for themselves: Iris was probably in her mid-thirties to early forties, same age or slightly younger than they, and on the senior side of things, for a field agent. Not someone the Israelis would send out without a _really_ good reason.

After a moment, G said: “I suppose we’ll find out tomorrow.”

“Nice hike down the mountain,” Sam said, changing the subject back to the incident he and G were supposedly there to investigate. What he meant was, _We’re supposed to talk to the Marines, and they’re down there and we’re up here._

“Got twelve Marines up here at all times,” Nate replied. “Four on perimeter duty, two for our guest.” _With the same numbers on standby_ went without saying; this was a standard four-four guard rotation. “I talked to Lieutenants Myers and Rosso.” The people they needed to talk to would be sent uphill for them as much as possible.

And G apparently still wasn’t big on a twenty-four-hour circadian rhythm, because he nodded and started in the direction of the door. “Right. Don’t wait up on me.”

That Sam didn’t roll his eyes at G’s back was a good sign in regards to how much G had slept in the past week. “Don’t make me send out the scouts.”

 _I really missed you guys._ But Nate had learned better than to say those things out loud. Instead, he expelled a long breath.

Judging by Sam’s expression, he got the message just fine.

 

* * *

 

G hiked up one of the trails and halfway out of camp as soon as there was enough light to make it safe. Or rather, enough light for Sam to not bitch at him when he showed up a while later, carrying two cups of tea. The sky was still noticeably pink.

G accepted one of the cups. “Sleep well?” he asked lightly.

“I didn’t wake up with a hilt poking out from between my ribs,” Sam replied dryly.

“I’m very glad to hear that.”

“Anything interesting?”

G considered the question carefully before he answered. “Only that this doesn’t make sense.”

“Read the files?”

It was a good question, and it was also a stupid question. “Well, I wasn’t going to read them by flashlight, Sam.” The files covered the background intel and the case progression; they weren’t urgent enough to risk waking Sam and having to hear him grouch all day.

Sam gave him a foul look anyway. “And you already decided that this doesn’t make sense. Based on the extensive information you gathered overnight.”

It didn’t matter how many times G was right, or how much Sam relied on his own instincts; Sam would always prefer the long way and want to have the hard data to quote in evidence. “Was the arrest sabotaged? Probably. Is there any indication who might’ve benefited from it? No.” There were too many parties who could benefit from interfering with this op. They didn’t just need to identify the mole; they needed to identify the mole’s operators, and plug the leak before the damage got worse.

Sam nodded, but all he said was: “Definitely need more information.”

G gave him a Look, but he also finally sipped on the tea. The taste was fresh, spicy and – “You didn’t make this.” This was tisane, not tea. Not that Sam wouldn’t have tisane, but this wasn’t one of his mixes.

“Seems like our roommate likes to cook,” Sam replied.

They had two roommates, but if Sam had meant Nate then he would’ve named him. “You’re _kidding_. You know if anybody’s been compromised in here, she’s top of the list?”

“Or one of the Russians sold out,” Sam countered.

“Could be one of ours.”

“That would fit with your no-motive theory, wouldn’t it.”

“Now who’s being a smartass?”

“What can I say, I learned from the best.”

G decided to ignore that. “You want the Marines, or Nate?”

“I want breakfast,” Sam retorted.

“Marines, then,” G acknowledged. “I’ll tell you what. Bring me breakfast, and I’ll read those files.”

It was Sam’s turn to give him a Look. “How about I throw you off the mountain instead?”

“Pity I won’t be there to see you explain it to Hettie.”

Sam wandered off to fetch them breakfast, and play Chief at some Marines. G finished his tea before heading back to the main area of their camp. By daylight the cave village was quaint. It could be picturesque, almost, but the atmosphere was marred by the signs of conflict as well as by the camo nets overhead and the armed Marines at the gate.

Ty and Corey were sitting in the sunlight. Corey smiled and waved him over. G smiled back and approached them. The necessary privacy to deal with Nate and the files would be there later; this opportunity was now.

Up close, the liquid in their cups looked and smelled like instant coffee. Ty openly considered G’s cup as he sat down next to the other two.

“Must be nice to have connections,” Ty said.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Ty looked at Corey. “He’s good.”

“He’s really good,” Corey agreed. “Almost looks like he believes himself. Looks a touch too smug, if you ask me.”

“Now, what would I possibly be smug about?” G asked.

“Being friends with the one friend of the one person around here whose field cooking doesn’t taste like field cooking,” Ty said.

“Are you sure you want to say that out loud in the open?” Corey asked.

G raised his eyebrows.

Ty made a face. “One of the Marines said something about Nadin and cooking where she could hear it,” he explained. “She wasn’t kind to his shoulder.”

O-kay. He’d hoped that Nate had played up Nadin’s hypervigilance. She’d be a nightmare to take down, if it was her. Outwardly, he quirked an eyebrow and asked: “Dislocated or broken?”

“Almost dislocated,” Ty said. “Just barely.”

That put a different spin on things. Knowing Marines and knowing female deep-cover agents, that Marine had likely earned being slapped down and Nadin had inflicted less damage than she could. G smiled blandly and said, “I’ll bear that in mind.”

 

* * *

 

“Gotta hand it to the DEA,” Sam noted when Nate finished debriefing G and him. They were sitting in their shared space. It was late afternoon, and sunset was fading into last light. “They sure know what they’re doing.”

“See, this is why I left the DEA,” G said.

“Because they know what they’re doing?” Nate asked neutrally.

“Because they have no creativity,” G said. “They have exactly one good sting, and they keep running it.”

“That’s because it keeps working,” Sam pointed out.

G gave him a foul look.

“It wasn’t precisely the same sting this time,” Nate said, cutting in before G could drag the conversation down further. “Typically, DEA agents would pretend to be the buyers. In this op, a DEA agent actually brought a Cartel to the table. Drugs, terrorists, Shevchenko. Three birds, one stone.”

The DEA had already bundled off the Cartel people, as that could be easily folded into the regular DEA activity in the area. The terrorists had been rather adamant about not being taken alive; some of them may yet fail on that goal, but they were in a hospital in Germany.

G shook his head. “Three birds and too many cooks. The more complicated an op is, the more ways in which it can go wrong.”

“The CIA only provided intelligence,” Sam pointed out. G’s opinion on the competence of CIA field agents was well-known, and Sam could do without having to listen to it again. His own experience was different. “The same applies for the Germans. Now, the Russians...”

“Really wanted Shevchenko out of their hair,” Nate countered. “I know the Russians have a record of playing nice with terrorists, but Shevchenko was definitely playing by his own agenda.”

“He could’ve made friends with an oligarch. You know what Russian internal politics looks like. Who authorized Russian involvement, the CIA?”

“The case was also vetted by NCIS,” Nate said.

“DC, or...?”

“Us,” Nate confirmed. “OSP.”

Sam exchanged a look with his partner. If OSP vetted this, then either Hettie, Nell or – most likely – both had cleared the Russian involvement. G and he weren’t likely to find any conflicting interests coming from that angle. That would’ve been the easiest explanation, but, Sam reflected, the only easy day was yesterday.

There was a loud thud from the door. It didn’t sound like a tap. Rather, it sounded like a stone hitting the worn wood.

Nate pushed himself up. “Must be Nadin informing us that Iris is here,” he said.

“By throwing a stone at the door,” G said.

“At least she wasn’t standing right outside listening on every word,” Sam pointed out. He pushed himself up as well. “Come on, G”.

There was still light outside. The hour was earlier than they’d arrived the day before; there must have been less sandstorms on the way from Qabul. Sam glanced down at the main clearing as they descended to the main gate. The Marines were holding the shift-change, easily distinct of the civilians by their dress and posture. There were only three civilians by the gate. The silhouette of Clark, the CIA interrogator, was easily distinguishable from the other men in the camp: he was neither tall nor lanky, and heavier than Ty. Nadin could almost be mistaken for Corey, but she was shorter and her long braid was showing in the long shadows. The third person, too, was a few inches too short to be Corey and with the kind of build that could be either a slim man or a medium-built woman in loose clothes. That was probably Iris, what with the large backpack. Her ponytail snapped around when she turned her head to look at them, but the deep shadows obscured her features.

G tensed.

“G?” Sam asked quietly. They were still far enough that voices shouldn’t carry.

“Does she look familiar to you?”

At this distance and this light all he had was body language cues and a size estimate. She was average height, medium build, and had to be quite fit to carry that backpack like that. The posture was right for an Israeli, the ease of it a sharp contrast to Nadin’s slinking gait.

It _was_ familiar, but that could be the result of the consistency training produced and an average body type. It could be, but Sam knew what G was seeing. Or rather, who. “Wrong agency, G.”

“Anything you guys want to tell me?” Nate asked under his breath.

“Too late for that,” G replied. They were fifteen feet away and drawing closer. Loudly, G said: “Hi there.”

Iris turned towards them, revealing her face.

“Oh hey,” Yael Dunski said. “Look who’s not in prison after all.”

 

 

 


	2. The Perfect Crime

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Yachne”, Israeli slang, derived from Yiddish. Often but not necessarily uncomplimentary; female busybody.

 

_“Happiness is the perfect crime_  
 _Each for the other_  
 _Eyes like fire”_

[The Dancefloor](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mTuGylyquM), Yehudit Ravitz

 

Yael’s rough sketch of a plan lasted about three minutes after arriving on site. The CIA interrogator bought that Iris Raz was there for the prisoner, and Yael would just need to keep him occupied enough to not consider other possibilities. Then a voice rang out.

“Hi there.”

She knew that voice. That was Callen – NCIS, OSP, Henrietta Lange’s – and where Callen was then Hanna would be as well, and Yael had a plan to adjust.

_Man plans and God laughs,_ Grandma Chava always cautioned them, and Uncle Michael would laugh and tell her _And this man laughs back._ Uncle Yoni would try to swear off his younger brother and claim said brother’s wife for a sister instead, and Yael’s mother would tell the younger of her older brothers: _If God thought you were funny you’d be so dead._

She could appreciate the humor of the situation later. At the moment, she had a sleight of hand to execute. Yael kept her expression neutral as she turned to face Callen, Hanna and the tall man who had to be Nate Getz. “Oh hey,” she said. “Look who’s not in prison after all.”

It was too dark to tell expressions and Callen was good enough to keep his body in check, but he couldn’t be too happy that she knew what he’d done three months before. Getz was doing a damn good job of appearing uninterested, but Clark was thrumming with curiosity.

Good.

“Got anyone kidnapped recently?” Callen fired back.

_Houston, we have a running gag,_ Yael thought. “Yes, thank you,” she said, and because that deserved to be cultivated she added: “It was very productive.”

Hanna looked like she’d just propositioned his baby sister.

The presumed Nate Getz filled the lull in the conversation while Callen got his head back in the game. “I suppose it’s pointless to ask if you two know each other.”

Yael smiled at him and offered her hand. “Dr. Getz, I presume.”

“Iris Raz. Your name precedes you,” he said as he took her hand. “And call me Nate.”

“May 2011,” she countered. “You were the only one with brains on that mess.”

_Pity no-one had listened to me_ was written all over his face. Yael agreed, and she’d written that in her post-hoc analysis. Getz had been listened to the next time.

He was also thinking along the same lines as her, because he said: “Your after-action analysis had been forwarded to me.”

The three NCIS agents would grill each other as soon as they had reasonable privacy, that was sure, and Clark seemed to be doing some quick planning. Nadin – Lilach, but Nadin still – was still impassive, but would not have much more patience, Yael thought.

She turned back to Clark and offered a carefully measured sharp smile. “Tomorrow at four thirty?”

Clark hadn’t actually told her when he intended to approach the prisoner next, and if she weighed everything right then she’d just surprised him a little and set his clock earlier than he would’ve liked.

He could bring up that he was going to begin half an hour later, or that he didn’t need her to review his strategy; he didn’t. He could also attempt to have the strategy meeting that night, but he didn’t attempt that, either. Instead, he smiled and shook her hand again. “I’ll see you then.”

 

* * *

 

There were all sorts of ways to approach the issue of the predator three caves down the trail. Nate went for the most direct. “So,” he told Callen once the door closed behind the three of them. “That’s your Israeli girlfriend.”

“She is _not_ my girlfriend,” Callen said automatically, predictably, “and her name is not Iris.”

“And she is not Mossad,” Sam added.

That ‘Iris Raz’ was an alias was no surprise at all. Sam’s statement required a moment of thought. Still, Israel only had so many intelligence agencies. “That’s not all that unusual.” Callen and Sam gave him twin foul looks. “Well, the Mossad regularly borrows personnel –”

Callen cut him off. “She’s not here for Shevchenko.”

The Mossad regularly borrowed interrogators from the Shin-Beit, but Callen was rarely wrong. “Shevchenko deals with Syria,” Nate pointed out. “Israel has legitimate interest.” Or they wouldn’t have been able to borrow Nadin for this op, wouldn’t have even been told that she existed, no matter how perfectly positioned she was.

“And _she_ isthe Shin-Beit’s in-house person,” Callen retorted.

Oh, _goatfuck._ That Iris was an interrogators’ interrogator, Nate could work with; that she was there to ferret a mole out of a group of trained agents, and not to interrogator Shevchenko, was almost a relief. The problem was that she was an interrogators’ interrogator who knew her cover was breached, and Nate had no idea what she might do about that. And that’s before he considered G’s track record with intelligent, manipulative brunettes.

Nate sat down, and told his fellow agents: “I want to know how you even _know_ all that. And also,” he added, as if in an afterthought, “why should you be in prison _this_ time?”

 

* * *

 

She was presently engaged in breaking regulations. Nadin didn’t particularly care. This particular reg had a damn good reason for existing but, sometimes, knowing the reason just meant that you could go around things smartly. Her enabler had to be thinking along the same lines, or she wouldn’t have done this, herself.

She still went up on a ledge for breakfast. She liked this particular ledge. It was a nice, sheltered spot with a good view on the trail below. It wasn’t much of a climb, but it was just enough that Nadin figured most anyone would think twice before following her. She didn’t need them to not do it; she just needed them to stay put that extra half a second.

This one, though – Nadin eyed the approaching man – this one wasn’t going to think about it. She was pretty sure he wasn’t a climber, for one; and also, he was a little too smart to think it’d be a good idea.

Callen picked a comfortable spot for eye contact and looked up at her. “So, you’re secretly a mountain goat.”

Either he knew more Hebrew than she’d thought – or he’d looked up _yael_ – or he was just commenting on her choice of a perch. Either way, Nadin was not going to confirm the reference he may or may not have made. She said nothing, but she maintained eye contact as she popped another piece of breakfast in her mouth.

His eyes traced the food, and then went back to the yellow bag it had come from. “Is that Hebrew?”

She popped another piece in her mouth. “Yes.”

“Hebrew packages in these mountains. Nobody ever said you guys have common sense.”

“You’d be a perfect fit for that body bag of a backpack once I’m done eating all the Bamba that’s in it,” she told him, and ate another piece. Packed between the words was the message: _If a freakin’ Dunski brought me Bamba, you don’t get to talk about it._

“Bamba,” he repeated. Good vowels, she’d give him that. “Is that how you say silkworm pupa in Hebrew?”

“No.” Another piece. “Hell of a similarity, though.” He was still looking at the Bamba like it was a living thing. “Are you allergic to peanuts?”

“No.”

“Pity.”

He smiled. Yeah, they had rapport, here. She considered waiting him out, but decided not to. The hell. “Lost anything up here?”

“Just stretching my legs.”

Like hell he was. She let her face communicate that.

“I’ll be stretching them elsewhere now.”

_You do that,_ she could add as he turned around to walk back to camp, but she didn’t.

 

* * *

 

G found both Sam and Nate at the family room cave, where most everyone convened for meals. They weren’t alone. Scott and Nika were also there – the CIA and Russian Intel analysts. G considered their faces, glanced at Sam’s face to confirm that Sam had checked behind G’s back and the passageway leading to the family cave’s only entrance was clear, and asked: “What’s going on?”

“Seems we’re lucky to have NCIS here,” Scott said mildly.

Nika huffed.

Yeah, G didn’t really expect Sam’s and his cover assignment to be accepted as more than a polite fiction. Good news, they had new evidence. Bad news: “And why would that be?” he asked as he approached the group.

“There is evidence missing from what should have been captured at the arrest,” Nate said.

“The place was bombed,” G pointed out. For an IED value of ‘bombed’. “Things might have been destroyed or lost.”

“Our guest would be quite lucky if this particular thumb drive got lost,” Nika said.

“And we’re missing the primary acquisition,” Scott added, his face tight.

Because you didn’t lure a big fish like Shevchenko anywhere with a sale of _conventional_ weapons, expensive as those weapons may be. But the ‘dirty’ in ‘dirty bomb’, that would work, and the merchandise that Shevchenko’s people had brought was the real deal.

And now the mole had a canister of radioactive material.

“Nobody who is in this room right now has had access to where the arrest had gone down,” Nate said.

In and of itself, that was not a sufficient criterion to clear anyone. However, that plus Nate being willing to clear those people, under this sort of a risk – that was good enough for G. But. “The Germans?” The three UCs and their handler were the immediate suspects; Klaus and Anke were not.

“Anke has had access to almost every single piece of electronics in this camp,” Scott said. “Every schedule, every logistic plan.”

“And she and Klaus have been a team for a very long time,” Nate added.

They weren’t suspects, but they had too much power to be trusted with this. All right. G moved to the next item on his mental list. “We should not be seen doing this.” If the five of them kept getting together, they’d be noticed and fast.

“Got a middleman,” Sam pointed out. He nodded at Nate.

Everyone in camp had valid professional reasons to talk to their one on-site profiler who also knew the Shevchenko op inside out; and G knew precisely how good Nate’s benign act was. “Then that’s what we do.”

 

* * *

 

It had still been dark when Clark and she sat down for the first debrief; it was almost midday when Yael finally emerged outside the set of caves used as a holding facility. She pulled up her sunglasses. The sunlight at this altitude and latitude was bright, even under the camo nets, even for someone used to the harsh Israeli light. The frames fit snugly against her face, blocking out the glare.

She glanced around the camp – nobody else was out – and started down the path to the effective agora.

Either Iris being sent to compete for interrogation-rights on Shevchenko was more believable than expected, or she’d poked Clark’s ego too much and he was tunneling in on her, or he was perfectly caught on and was just that good an actor and curious besides. Either way, she was going to play an entirely real role in interrogating Shevchenko, and it was a good thing for her primary assignment that Clark had already established rapport before she’d arrived.

She hadn’t really had breakfast, but food wasn’t a priority yet. Seven hours were nothing and even if they weren’t, Ty had shown up while Clark and she were hashing out the morning’s session, bearing food and wearing the exasperated, patient air of a man who found himself feeding others more often than he’d like.

He didn’t wear it well.

The family room cave was unsurprisingly empty when she got there. Yael located the burner and then what passed for a communal coffee set. She gave the coffee jar one shake, eyed it critically and then placed it back without bothering to open it and headed back outside and up the path, all the way to the cave-set she and Nadin shared. She could understand why someone would bring coffee like that on a field assignment if she thought of it through the lens of her work. Personally, she found it nonsensical.

She’d share her coffee, but she left the smaller box with the ground cardamom in her bag. She had more than enough; that wasn’t her reason.

She gained a shadow on the way back down. Yael pretended to not notice as she headed back to the shared space. Stas, the Russian UC, was there when she lifted her eyes from the water pot she’d just placed on the stove. She didn’t bother showing any expression.

“You like your coffee sweet, don’t you.” Not that she disagreed, but the words did not communicate that and she kept the opinion out of her voice.

Stas’ expression flickered a little.

“Find the sugar, if you want it.”

She held his gaze until he went to do just that. His hopefulness was authentic: he really did want the coffee, though he was probably also scoping her out.

She watched the bubbles in the water and wondered who’d show up next. Not the Germans; Clark had just gone to confer with Klaus – who was the resident expert on Shevchenko’s business – and besides, Yael had pegged both Germans as reliably routine and likely to consider themselves above the petty games of the younger agents. Getz was a possibility. So was Scott. Ty had a longer nose than was healthy for him, but he also knew not to lean in too hard.

Scott was indeed the next to show up, and the look he gave the pot – which was already smelling of coffee – was dubious and almost alarmed.

She could insult the infamous American lack of taste in coffee. She didn’t. She glanced at Stas, making sure to establish brief eye contact, but Stas didn’t go for a third cup on his own. Scott hadn’t missed the exchange, and held his head a little higher and his shoulders a little straighter as he fetched himself a cup and sat down next to Yael, cross-legged and manifestly comfortable.

Stas didn’t bother dignifying that with any response.

She estimated twenty more minutes before Clark and Klaus arrived, with Callen, Getz and Anke arriving next – not necessarily together – and Hanna after that with the Marine shift change and food; Nika, Ty and Corey would gravitate in once food was there.

Instead, Corey was next to arrive, ten minutes after.

“It smells of coffee in here,” he said.

“All gone,” Stas said shortly.

“No, I meant – like real coffee.” Corey looked around the room hopefully.

That could be used. “Some of us have priorities,” Yael replied.

Scott rolled his eyes.

“Everybody has priorities,” Corey said as he joined them on the mats.

“Yes,” Yael agreed. She caught his eyes and held them. “Some of us just have the right ones.”

If they were still talking about field coffee then that would have been Corey’s cue to express agreement.

“I’ve been warned about you Israelis and your coffee,” Scott said. “Next time, I’ll believe it.”

“Yes,” Stas said.

The rest of the camp population started trickling in as expected. Except for Callen: he was a no-show.

Ty kept looking around until Hanna began digging into his food, indicating that Callen wasn’t going to show up. Interestingly, the resident _yachne_ didn’t say anything, just sat a plate to the side.

The UCs were the only others to respond in any way. Stas seemed unhappy about this development, eyes going between the plate and Hanna a few times before he caught himself. Corey was trying his calf-eyes at Hanna – who was, maybe, ignoring Corey a little too much. If Corey noticed, he didn’t press his advantage.

She caught Hanna’s eyes once. He glared at her, briefly but intensely.

As if she had a doubt what this was about.

 

* * *

 

Scouting the back of the caves was a surprisingly good idea, G decided. It was easier to think there, where he didn’t need to worry about who might be watching his every move, or recording how long he was staying behind the Cave NCIS’s closed door.

The beam of somebody else’s flashlight cut through the darkness. G’s first thought was that it was Sam come looking for him sooner than expected – either he’d gotten impatient, or something had happened. However, the person behind the beam was way too small to be Sam. Small enough to be –

Oh, _shit._ Just the person he was trying to avoid.

Yael Dunski tossed him something crinkly that turned out to be – when he caught it and turned it over so he could look at it – a granola bar, and not the kind that came in an MRE.

He looked up at her, very carefully not raising his eyebrows.

“I’m buying you off with food,” she informed him as she stepped closer.

“I don’t think it works this way.”

_It did last time._ She didn’t need to say it; his own mind supplied the observation. He looked back down at the bar. He wanted to toss it back to her, but he couldn’t. Damnit.

When he looked back up, she was three feet from him. He’d feel better if she was making more noise. _Go away._ He flashed his beam in her face instead of saying that.

The corner of her mouth curved in a smile. “Cute.” The smile disappeared. “But not actually my idea of a pick-up.”

“Good. Go away.” His voice came out appropriately frosty. Good.

“You made yourself in need of finding.”

He could think of several replies to that, and each and every one of them would dig him deeper into her traps. All, except one. He lowered his flashlight. “Is that why you’re here?”

“I’m here to do my job.”

“And what would that be?”

“What is yours?”

It was, probably, as much of a confirmation as he was going to get out of her. He turned the bar over in his hand again. “Well, at least at least there’s no Hebrew on this one.”

“Never try to separate an Israeli from her Bamba.”

Which more than _suggested_ that Nadin had told her about the morning encounter. He tore the foil open and bit into the bar. Chocolate; that was nice. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

He tried to walk around her.

She fell in step with him.

It didn’t matter how solid her reputation was. If they came out of the caves together, someone was going to get ideas. He almost pointed that out to her; almost. She had to know that, though, which meant she had to be deliberately courting the leers and the jabs.

He could see what that would buy her. It was a dangerous way to play it, but he’d seen her face off Gibbs on his home turf as if he was a gnat, and he’d seen her take on five men in a fistfight and come out with only one bruise to show for it.

He wasn’t responsible for her choices, but he didn’t have to play along with her plans, either.

He swallowed the last bite of the granola bar he hadn’t meant to eat, and crumpled the wrapper in his fist.

 

* * *

 

It wasn't before 1600 hours that Sam had his chance. Scott was helping; nearly two years of working with Nell had taught Sam that intelligence analysts had their own kind of sneaky. Between Scott and Nate, Sam knew most of the camp’s population would be occupied long enough for him to have this chat. The UCs were a different problem. Corey stuck to G like a barnacle – which also served to keep G out of Sam’s hair – but there was no telling where Stas or Nadin were. He just might run into Nadin in seconds.

Sam knocked on the door once, sharply.

“Open!” called Dunski’s voice.

Sam pushed the door open. Dunski was the only one in sight, sitting on the cave’s floor with a whole lot of papers that – at a glance – belonged to the Shevchenko case, a field stove, a small pot sitting on top of the latter and a coffee kit within reach.

She didn't smile at him. She was the sort of expressionless that meant she was doing him the courtesy of not lying as she said: “We are actually having this conversation.”

“And which conversation would that be?”

She checked the pot and topped it off with water before lighting the stove, flame turned to the max. “The one where you warn me to neither fuck nor fuck with your little sister.”

“I don’t have a sister.”

“Prove you don’t have a sister.”

“You think you're funny.”

“God doesn't think I'm funny.”

He raised his eyebrows, but she didn't elaborate.

“I don't know what game you think you're playing...”

“If I were ‘playing a game’ you wouldn't be here to warn me off.”

Her factual confidence made him want to raise his hackles.

She eyed the pot, and then flipped open the coffee kit and retrieved a teaspoon and the coffee tin before she removed the pot from the stove with one hand and reduced the flame with the other.

Sam’s eyes went to her hands as she carefully measured coffee into the pot and added a pinch of ground cardamom; the scent of the spice, when she opened the small tin, was lemony and rich.

Fresh cardamom; good coffee; pot and cups that did not come from the Marines’ field kitchen; the way she handled the coffee kit. You had to see it, and you had to have known Israelis – you had to have known Israeli _soldiers –_ before. If you didn’t, then Dunski’s fussiness over coffee seemed as just that – fussiness. Sam knew Israelis well enough to know where and how one picked up this ritual, though.

That Dunski had served in the military was a given. Nobody worked where she did who’d evaded the draft. That she’d been an officer was almost certain, though Sam couldn’t tell if she’d been a lieutenant or a captain. She’d seemed more urban to him, camp-based; that she could handle herself in hand-to-hand had nothing to do with that; but her way with coffee spoke of _shetach,_ field; ‘deployment’ was a nonexistent concept for people whose front line was ten miles from their home. Sam did the math while Dunski stirred the coffee and returned the pot to the stove. She’d been born in ‘82 and would have been drafted in 2000; Dunski’s military service overlapped perfectly with the Second Intifada.

By the time she looked up again he’d smoothed his expression. “I wonder what my partner would have to say if I told him that you just called him my little _sister._ ”

“It’s a reflection on you, more than him.”

G regularly complained that Sam was not actually his mom, but Sam would tear out his own fingernails before he told her that. “We’re all here to do a job.”

“I thought you were here for the coffee.” He gave her a flat stare. She didn’t seem particularly impressed. “Tell me you didn’t secure at least ten more minutes before there’s a risk of anyone seeing you walk out of here.” She shrugged, the clearly-artificial gesture he’d seen before. “Besides, you’re one of three people in this camp other than myself who realize the difference of good coffee from both cat piss and battery acid, and one of two who appreciate _hel._ ”

He snorted; he couldn’t help it. These just might be the only honest words he’d ever hear from her. “Boo-hoo,” he retorted, but he did sit down.

 

* * *

 

The thing with Corey was, he didn’t take no for an answer. G was familiar with the strategy; it was a good one in an undercover specialist, much like it was in a door-to-door salesman, and for many of the same reasons. Granted, UCs needed to be more clever and less obvious about it, which Corey had been spectacularly failing at for the past two days. Calling G out as “ _The_ Callen” had been just the opening shot.

Under different circumstances, G would’ve entertained the Starry-Eyed Novice Show just to fuck with the younger UC. As it was, G had done his best to shut Corey down. Corey had tried Being Helpful precisely once before switching to the present tactic.

G had to admit, this was at least entertaining.

“I’m surprised Perez didn’t try to make a kidney donor out of you,” he remarked. He and Corey were sitting on the boulders by the stairs, drinking crap coffee and catching the last of the sunlight. Sam had gone down the mountains with the Marines, on the official excuse of getting them all some dinner that wasn’t Nika’s cooking, and the unofficial reason of having a safe environment from which to phone home.

“He suggested it,” Corey replied cheerfully. “I told him if he gave me until midnight, I’d get him a willing donor.”

“Let me guess: it made him laugh.”

Corey smiled and shrugged. “And sometimes, we’re Scheherazade.”

Those four words were taken directly out of one of G’s earliest reports. _And sometimes we’re Scheherazade, spinning stories to stay alive for one more day._ The direct quote fit with Corey’s pattern, but the pattern bothered G. Corey had studied him, seriously so. People prone to hero worship did not usually make good UCs, which Corey evidently was; something else was at play here. Inspiration, G figured. The stories Corey was telling of his own exploits were all of the sort of displays that had made any handler G had ever had who wasn’t Hettie wonder if he didn’t have a death wish.

Corey didn't have to display the connection. This was deliberate, intentional. But _why_ was he investing so much in establishing rapport with G?

_And sometimes, we’re Scheherazade._

Corey didn’t want to get caught, just like G had never had a death wish. It was, G thought, an important insight, particularly as he himself was still alive.

Catching Corey was not going to be easy.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Yael” is a very popular Israeli woman’s name, easily as common as one in ten. It’s also the name of a Biblical character (better known in English as Jael) and the Hebrew name for [desert mountain goats](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1b/Capra_ibex_nubiana_near_Mitzpe_Ramon_in_summer_2011_%283%29.JPG)


	3. Catch

_“There he goes again_  
 _Disenchanted with disenchantment_  
 _He'd play catch by himself_  
 _But he cannot find a reason”_

[Driven Snow](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUlnVUKcYwc), Machina

 

* * *

 

Captain Cameron of the Marines was smart enough to let Sam use his tent without Sam having to outright ask. He’d done so the first time Sam had come down the mountain under the pretense of interviews two days before, and by now it was routine. Some conversations, Sam preferred to have down here, where he could be reasonably sure none of the people within two hundred yards of him was a traitor.

The temperature inside the tent was marginally more comfortable than outside, where it was still night-cool. It was sunrise in the Zaranj mountains, which made it early night on the West Coast. It was technically over an hour since Nell’s shift had ended, but this was the best compromise as satellite windows went, and Sam needed to actually _talk_ to Nell, and not just leave a message with whoever happened to be on shift.

Nell picked up before the first ring, which meant she was haunting the phone and waiting for Sam to call, which in turn meant she had fresh intel. “Hi Sam.”

“Tell me you got something good.”

“What, no ‘Good evening’? Just kidding,” she added hastily.

“For a moment there I thought I was talking to Eric.”

Nell changed tact. “So, I looked into the history of this case, like you asked. Had to sweet-talk some people.”

Sam knew all about Nell’s brand of ‘sweet talk’. That time she’d managed to leverage the Department of Agriculture to get the CIA to spill on an asset was the stuff legends were made of.

“So apparently this case originated with the CIA”

No surprises there.

Nell continued. “They contacted the DEA and the Germans first.”

“I’d’ve thought that the Russians made a more natural ally on this,” Sam remarked. Though that was possibly the less interesting point. Yes, the DEA had some good plays, but the CIA knew their shit and had their pride.

“Apparently the Germans have the leading content expert. The Russians were the DEA’s idea.”

That was a surprise. If anyone was going to get ambitious and potentially over-reach, Sam would’ve thought it would be the CIA. “It was the DEA’s idea to stage an actual wedding? I thought that was CIA ambition.”

“DEA’s still got more to prove, I guess. Or maybe it’s just Ty who does.”

Sam’s skin prickle. He knew his voice was a little tight as he asked: “Ty? The op design was his idea?”

“Yes. He also recommended Corey specifically. Apparently they’d worked together before.”

This wasn’t going anywhere good. “They work together often?”

“Not _that_ often.” Nell’s apologetic tone suggested she’d been looking along the same lines as he was thinking. “Want me to look into that?”

“Yes.”

“What else?” she asked crisply.

Good girl: Nell knew when not to ask _if_ there was anything else. “Who else might be after Shevchenko?”

“Countries, business rivals...”

“Probably more of the latter,” he admitted after a moment. “Though I wouldn’t rule out the former.”

“So noted. You realize that’s going to be a huge list.”

What she meant was, that list was going to be so long as to be effectively useless. “Might be someone who’d also be interested in the bride price,” he hedged. Their mole had lifted both the thumb drive and the canister, which suggested both had use to him.

Expectedly, that gave Nell a pause. It was a longer pause than Sam had anticipated but, when she spoke again, her voice was sure and calm: “I can work with that.”

God bless Nell, and – though Sam would never admit it out loud – God bless Vance for having forced her on them back when they didn’t know better.

 

* * *

 

Sam’s body tensed as soon as the door closed behind the three of them.

_Uh-uh,_ Nate thought. It was never good when Sam actually communicated things nonverbally.

“Ty and Corey are long-standing partners,” Sam said.

“How long-standing?” G demanded.

“Ty brought him in.”

G’s expression shuttered.

“Huh,” Nate said, deliberately thoughtful, buying all three of them a few more seconds.

“Huh, what?” Sam demanded.

And that it was Sam who asked that and not G told Nate that G really did need the extra moment, and Sam had known to expect that. There was some sort of a history here that Nate had missed over the past year and a half.

“Ty is in a good position to get away with things, structurally speaking,” Nate said. “Running the UCs, least supervised person in the camp... no natural partner,” he added after a beat.

“Except you,” G said, a little nastily.

“I’m not here as an operational psychologist,” Nate replied mildly.

“No, you’re here as a profiler,” Sam said. “Anything about Ty stand out?”

“He turned the charm up since you arrived,” Nate admitted. “Not by a lot, but...”

“Enough that you’d suspect him?” Sam suggested.

“Since I have to have someone to suspect.”

“Good news, we know who our moles probably are,” G said, faux-lightly.

“Bad news, it looks like there are twoof them, and we can’t prove either of them,” Sam replied bitingly. “We’re going to need something more than hunches here, and I don’t _care_ how good both of you are at what you do. We don’t even have a lead on who they might be working for.”

“Most likely one Cartel or the other,” G said.

“I don’t know if that’s good new or bad news,” Nate muttered.

“The jihadists wouldn’t have had access to Corey,” Sam said.

“Unless Ty was lying for both of them,” G pointed out. “Or the Cartels could be branching out, which wouldn’t really surprise me. Anyway, this is what Nell is for. It doesn’t affect how we go about this.”

“It affects how Corey and Ty might react,” Sam retorted.

There was an obvious solution to that. Both other agents should know that, and Nate had a feeling that Sam deliberately left it for Nate to say. He didn’t mind, if it meant that whatever was bothering G here, he wouldn’t take it out on Sam. Old patterns lingered, and there were things G took better from Nate than from his partner, as much as the dynamic had settled and solidified over the years. “So we circumvent that. We control what they react to.”

Sam and G exchanged a look. “We’ll need a Plan B in case only one of them is in on this.”

“Yeah, and it’d better be a better one than last time.”

“Hey, _I’m_ the one who ended up with a split brow and a bruised solar plexus.”

“That was my point.”

“Are you saying I don’t take good care of myself?”

Sam gave him a scathing look.

“Do we also need a Plan C?” Nate asked, and then tried to not wince as both other agents turned on him. “Plan B in case it’s only one of them, Plan C in case it’s the other one.”

Sam shook his head. “Let’s just try to not need a Plan D.”

 

* * *

 

Scott and Nika had taken over one of the wide stone steps. Their papers were spread around, weighed in place with rocks and pebbles. Both looked up as G stopped next to them. Nika eyed G’s gear warily.

“Going somewhere?” he asked.

“Yeah,” G acknowledged. “You’re not invited.”

“You’re breaking my heart.”

“The nice people just asked Klaus in, if you want to go over those schematics again,” Scott said.

G shook his head. “I wanted to know if you’ve seen Ty, actually.”

Nika and Scott exchanged a look.

Yeah, he hadn’t actually _looked_ for Ty, G was well aware of that, but he was reasonably certain that neither analyst would call him out on it. Besides, it made enough sense to ask the people who were outside and might have seen something, instead of searching a camp that was quite big for fourteen people.

“Try the den,” Clark said. “He tends to hang out there, when your girlfriend isn’t chasing him out.”

G gave him an unimpressed look. “I have a girlfriend?”

Nika’s eyebrows climbed up. “You tell us.”

G shook his head.

“You two definitely look like you know each other,” Clark said.

_I wouldn’t jump into a river if she was drowning._ That was too sharp, though, not something he could say out loud. “Thanks for the tip,” he said instead, and turned around to head to the family room.

 

* * *

 

It was easier for the people who were any good cooking on camp stoves, Nate thought. Or who could make themselves drink the atrocity that was instant coffee with powdered creamer. Since Nate couldn’t do either – at least not unless his life depended on it – there was no way he couldn’t make it as if he _wasn’t_ watching the other two NCIS agents as they left camp with Ty. Since he couldn’t do that, he didn’t even try to. His reputation as a worrying worrier who worries – not that anyone had mentioned it to his face – was helpful, in that regard. It also helped that G had their accompanying Marines not meet them at the camp gate.

He expected the ever-curious Corey to show up. That was half the point of this exercise. He just didn’t expect how fast Corey would materialize at his side with a grin, that coy attitude and – yes – coffee.

“That abomination is going to eat you from the inside out,” Nate told him.

“Naw,” Corey said.

Nate still made a point of glaring at it as if it was poison.

Corey seemed to find that amusing; his lips were twitching.

Nate pointedly ignored that.

“Your buddies going to be okay out there?” Corey asked after a moment.

“They should be.”

Corey snorted. “Don’t let the Israelis hear you say that.”

Nate smiled in reply. “Smacked you upside the head with a fish, didn’t they?”

“There is no species of fish called ‘should’!” Corey said exasperatedly.

“I think it’s Amur.”

“Yeah, Nika translated me that one eventually but seriously, what’s with the attitude?”

Nika, Nate noted; not Stas. He shrugged in reply. He was curious to see whether Corey would continue to chase that scent, or whether he would –

“They’re going to where we picked up Shevchenko, aren’t they? I can’t think of anything else interesting out there.”

“Yes,” Nate confirmed, injecting the appropriate worry into his voice.

“Except Ty wasn’t actually _there._ ”

“No, but he debriefed with all three of you.”

“Point,” Corey acknowledged. Then, more hopefully: “Any progress?”

Nate shook his head a little. “It’s not really my field,” he cautioned, which of course made Corey perk up, “but I think so, yeah. It might be looking like big feral predators don’t always play well with each other.”

“It took two NCIS investigators to figure that out. I can see why you like the field better.”

“Well, it’s certainly not for the coffee.”

 

* * *

 

Divide and conquer, that was Plan A. If Ty and Corey were both dirty, the first step to proving it had to be separating them. Sam and G needed to visit the grab site anyway to maintain their cover. That was convenient. Really, they had the easier half of this leg of the plan, G reflected. Nate was the one who had to deal with the UCs. Corey was the primary target, but it wouldn’t hurt if Nate managed to corner Nadin or Stas. Nate hoped that Nadin might come in on her own, with Sam and G away from camp and Dunski occupied in interrogation. G wasn’t that optimistic.

Meanwhile, Sam’s and G’s goals included assessing Ty. G eyed him where he was sitting on the other side of the Humvee. If he had any reason to be nervous about being taken out into the middle of the wilderness by NCIS and Special Operations Marines who were liable to follow orders, he didn’t show it. He was also politely silent, a striking contrast to his chatty on-camp persona. If not for Nell’s information, G would have no reason to suspect him.

Well. They were about to find out. Bringing Ty out of camp also allowed them to control what Ty knew, and when he could disperse what he knew. If Ty was corrupted, he _was_ going to spook; and if he had a partner, then he’d be liable to trip up said partner when they returned to camp.

And if Ty was clean, then they’d better hope Nate was having better luck than they.

 

* * *

 

They let Klaus go around ten in the morning. There were advantages to German brusqueness, and Yael made the most of them. If Clark had reservations, they didn’t show. Yael’s assessment was that he had none.

Clark pushed himself to his feet and stretched as soon as Klaus was out of the room. Authentic, she thought; Clark had a thick divide between his self in interrogation and outside of it. The slanted look he gave her, though, that was deliberate.

“I’m dying for breakfast,” he declared. “Though it feels more like lunch, we’ve been at this since oh-four-hundred.”

“That would be MREs, unless someone had saved us anything.” Nadin would’ve if Yael had asked, which she didn’t. Getz would’ve if he’d thought they’d want it, which they’d given him no reason to. Yael had the tins of halva from IDF field rations – in the pockets of her cargo pants, even – but she wasn’t about to break these out for anything short of an actual emergency.

“You could do this until evening and not need a break, couldn’t you,” Clark grumbled. He crouched down, but didn’t actually sit. They were about to have a break soon, apparently.

“When I was nineteen, maybe.”

That got Clark to cast her a quick look.

_Yes,_ Yael thought. _I was doing this at nineteen._ He’d be rethinking his estimate of her age now, adjusting it at least five years younger than he’d previously thought. And even if he didn’t, she’d just given him a pause. Either way, it fed the myth that was Iris Raz.

Nineteen was young in this line of work, even for Israel, even as recommended as she’d come at the time of her pre-draft screens. But the Second Intifada broke four months into her service, and everything was sped up. Her basic training company had been tossed into an all-too-real operational deployment, a month to go until they were scheduled to graduate or not. Half a year after that she had a second lieutenant’s coffins, one on each shoulder, and the unit she’d been slotted for needed all the hands they could get as soon as they could get them. She’d been a full decade younger than Unit 1391 preferred to recruit at and, so long as she didn’t break, her COs kept pushing.

She didn’t break.

She’d been nineteen. She was thirty. Shin-Beit ranks paralleled the IDF’s; if she checked that last box, she could be the equivalent of a lieutenant colonel within a year.

Clark shook his head. “Come on, Iron Woman. Let’s go scare food out of someone.”

 

* * *

 

The Marines rotated their guard rotation every four hours, and they weren’t even on watch for all of that. That alone made Nadin want to laugh. And they called that Four-Four. Sure, it was a nice rotation, if you had the people to spare for it. She wondered, when she had nothing better to think of, how quickly IDF-style Four-Eight would drive them crazy. Or, better yet, Eight-Eight; that could wear out a _sayeret_ platoon in two weeks.

Then again, if the Marines were doing Four-Eight, let alone an Eight-Eight, Nadin would have fewer potential opportunities to work with. As it was, though, she had so many that she could afford to choose. Lunch run seemed the most promising, since it typically drew the largest turnout. She had to re-plan when she’d spotted the interrogator and Iris emerge a couple hours before lunch. She’d counted on them not being around when lunch arrived. She could adjust – a plan that couldn’t be adjusted on the fly was no plan at all – but there were good reasons she chose a time window in which she could reasonably expect those two to be absent from communal space.

They were back inside the holding caves within an hour, though. Interrogator ego-wars, Nadin thought. These weren’t the kind of circumstances where demonstrating to subjects that they weren’t your top priorities was the top consideration.

Stray cats and soldiers, Nadin thought as she watched people idle within sight of the camp gate. Or bored people with a repetitive routine. Of course, part of the reason people were idling where they could see their lunch arriving was precisely because Routine had been disrupted: NCIS removed Ty from camp for the day, and Ty had made himself into a social necessity.

The remaining Americans were standing together, them and the Russian analyst. Stas was liable to arrive last. The Germans had damn fine timekeeping and would arrive within a moment of –

There. Lunch and a change of shift had arrived. The ever-so-helpful Americans immediately relieved the Marines of the food and when they turned back around, Nadin was there.

“Damnit!” Scott swore.

Nadin didn’t smile. She did take half the pile of boxes from Getz’s hands. He stayed still as she did so and his expression didn’t flicker, but he did track her a bit more closely.

She’d expected him to notice that this was a little unusual for her. She also expected everyone else to be too antagonized to notice.

Well, Corey noticed _something._ He grinned at her. “Missed you.”

“Can’t say the same.”

She left out _It’s a pity._ He noticed.

Getz coughed.

“I’m afraid we’re missing the sitter,” Nika told him.

Nadin raised both eyebrows, as if she had no idea what they were talking about.

“Callen, Hanna and Ty went out to the grab site,” Scott explained.

“What’d they lose there? Or is Callen pitching a fit because his girlfriend got a new playmate?”

Nika’s lips twitched, indicating amusement; the muscles around Getz’s eye twitched, indicating that he’d been left out of the loop and only just realized that. All he said, though, was: “Food’s getting cold, guys.”

Whatever. She had Bamba.

 

* * *

 

G was beginning to think they’d need to change tact to Plan B. Or C. He maintained that Plan B was Ty being clean, but Sam insisted that that was Plan C, and Plan B was Corey being clean. Whichever way they labeled their plan for dealing with it, though, Ty was failing at acting guilty. Unless they were going to count unfailingly friendly cooperation as an indication of guilt. Which had happened before, but they still needed more to go on, here. Yes, Ty was glancing curiously as the Marines searched the perimeter, but that was understandable. If anything, he was too reserved.

Maybe.

“I think we’re done here,” G said.

“Almost done,” Sam corrected. The Marines were still at it.

Ty hesitated for a moment, and then gave up. “May I ask what we lost? Do I want to know?”

“Thumb drive,” Sam said, at the same time that G said: “You don’t want to know.”

Ty looked between them.

Wary, G decided. Definitely wary. He looked away, gaze trailing after the Marines. They wanted Ty to not think they were on to Corey and him, didn’t want him to realize that they’d just deliberately revealed this information to him. Ty wasn’t half-bad at this, and Sam and he would need to be careful to not trip up and tip him off, now that he knew he was at risk.

Gunny Williams was approaching them. Perfect timing, so perfect that G had to wonder if Williams hadn’t realized what they were up to and was facilitating things. Like Recon, Special Operations Marines had some basic HUMINT training.

“What is it, Gunny?” Sam asked.

“Got nothing, sir,” Williams said.

_Sir?_ G resisted the urge to glance at his partner. Williams really ought to have known better after two days of Sam hanging in and out of the Marines’ camp. That, together with Sam not retorting with the kneejerk _Don’t call me ‘sir’, I work for a living,_ suggested that Williams was indeed playing along with the veiled interrogation.

Williams continued. “If that drive or the canister are anywhere around here, the men can’t find ‘em.” His tone heavily implied, _And if my Marines can’t find them, then they’re not here._

_No,_ G thought, _they really aren’t._ Ty was decidedly spooked, now, enough that G would’ve started paying attention even if he wasn’t primed to look for it.

“The canister?” Ty asked. “ _The_ canister? It’s missing?”

“Yes,” Sam replied shortly.

Ty made a wane attempt to smile at G. “You were right; I really didn’t want to know that.”

“We must ask that you keep quiet about this,” G said. “You understand why.”

Ty nodded. “Of course. But is it possible that – ” he glanced at Williams.

The Gunny scowled.

“We’ll have to double-check with Scott,” Sam said and added, in a more exasperated voice: “And triple-check with Anke.”

“Great,” G muttered. “Have you met Anke, Gunny?”

“No, sir,” Williams replied with a straight face. “But you’re making it sound like I just might like her.”

Sam smiled a little. “You would. Come on,” he added in G’s direction.

G rolled his eyes dramatically. “Now are we done here?”

“Now we’re done here,” Sam agreed.

 

* * *

 

Yael was sitting outside the cave-set she shared with Nadin, pretending to work on the Shevchenko case while studying the map. Nadin had picked them a cave near the top of the trail, with as good lines of sight as was possible. Yael spotted Getz approaching well before he arrived, but she didn’t glance up until he paused in place. He was polite enough to stand at a reasonably comfortable distance for her to look up.

“Tea inside,” she informed him. “You can have some.”

“Thanks.”

She strongly doubted that he was there for the tea. However, she was sure enough that he knew better than to refuse an invitation for tea or coffee. It was hardly likely to affect her response to whatever he was going to ask – factual considerations prevailed – but he had the rapport-building habits ingrained.

He returned a moment later and sat down beside her with a steaming cup. Judging by how long he’d been gone and the colour of the tea, he’d added sugar to it, though not as much as Nadin would’ve added, if she hadn’t tempered the pot to Yael’s taste.

The light was turning golden.

“I’m worried about her,” he said abruptly.

_Worried about her_ could mean one of two different things, or both of them. Yael had no way to tell which Getz meant without more data.

She let the conversation hang for a moment more before she replied: “I’m not.”

“I realize you have different expectations. I tried to account for that. But still – I really do worry.”

The words and his tone suggested ‘worried for’ more than they did ‘worried about’. It wasn’t a solid enough estimate for Yael to commit to. However, it was the way Nate presented himself.

Yael glanced at him. “She’s not our first agent on this long and this remote an assignment,” she reminded him. And because Americans and Europeans could be ridiculous about some things, she added: “Not the first female one, either. The reassimilation protocols are calibrated.”

“I know,” he sighed after a moment. He smiled a little. “Worrying’s been my job for a few years. I suppose good habits die hard, too.”

That, she would believe.

His tone was wry, so she kept hers mild. “We do actually take care of our people. We don’t have any to spare.”

That gave him a long pause. “I think that’s why I worry.”

Coming from an Israeli, she might have raised her cup in acknowledgment. She didn’t. She considered the sunlight.

It was almost time.

 

* * *

 

Scott and Nate had left Nika, Clark and Stas in the family room. Nika took up cooking duty as usual; Stas was helping, for what was actually the first time. Clark seemed to just want some company. Iris had left to catch a satellite window for a phone call, Clark had said. Nobody knew where Nadin was but then, that was as usual, too. Corey’s absence was more noteworthy.

The guys had radioed in when they arrived back at the Marine camp, and were due to arrive at the cave camp any moment. Scott went to the gate; Nate went up the trail and found a turn behind which to hide. The light was deep orange and would soon turn to purple but, for now, it was still easy enough to see around.

The sound of the gate opening and then closing carried. Scott’s voice came after, loud and clear: “I was beginning to think you guys got lost.”

Nate couldn’t pick whatever was said after, which suggested Sam was the one to reply.

Then Scott replied: “Well, you should come in. Nika and Stas are cooking, and at least Stas seems to know what he’s doing...”

Ty’s voice wasn’t as clear as Scott’s. Nate could pick the apologetic tone, and one every two or three words. He started down the path. Ty came into view three seconds later. He seemed distracted, and as if the weather – or something else – didn’t agree with him. “Hi, Ty,” Nate said, feigning a slightly surprise. “Didn’t know you guys got back.”

Ty managed a remarkably convincing smile. “We only just did.”

Nate frowned. “Are you all right?”

“Not really,” Ty admitted. “We were out at the worst hours, you know? Figure I’d lay down a bit.”

“Good idea,” Nate agreed. “See you later.”

“Later.”

Nate continued a few steps down and then turned around briefly, just to make sure Ty was going where he’d said he was going, before briskly descending the rest of the way to the open space by the gate, where Scott, Sam and G were waiting.

“He’s gone to Cave DEA,” Nate reported.

Sam and G exchanged a look.

“I suppose he could act guiltier if he tried,” G noted.

“But not by much,” Sam agreed.

G turned to Nate. “Is Corey there?”

“No.”

Nate tried to not startle. He failed.

He really should have been used to Nadin, by now.

“I really wish you’d find a new hobby,” Scott said.

Nadin ignored him. “He’s gone after Iris.”

“He what?” G asked sharply.

“Clark said she went to make a phone call,” Nate said.

“Reason to leave camp,” Nadin said shortly. “He snuck right after her.”

“Is she playing _bait?_ ” Sam demanded. “The sun’s almost set! It’s going to be full dark in thirty minutes!”

“I can make it twenty.”

“You chose the staging area,” G half-stated, half-asked.

_Of course,_ Nate realized: it was obvious in hindsight. “He’s a psychopath or at least has psychopathic tendencies – he’s arrogant, we already know that. It wouldn’t take much to make him discount Iris as a threat and he’s gotten away with everything else until now. If he thought she was on to him – ” Which Iris must’ve made sure he did. “He’s about to frame himself.”

“And we’re losing time,” Sam said.

“Ty,” G said.

“I got him,” Nate promised.

G looked between Nadin and Sam, and told Nate: “ _We_ got him.” Then he looked at Sam again.

Sam nodded.

Nadin turned around and started running up the path. Sam followed, catching up with her in seconds.

G looked at Nate. His expression closed off in a way Nate well remembered from interrogations. “Looks like we’re playing good cop, bad cop for a change.”

“For a change?” Scott asked.

“The usual method around OSP is bad cop, bad cop,” Nate replied mildly.

“I’ll pretend I never heard that and go save you all some dinner.”

“Sounds good,” G said. He didn’t even glance at Scott as he pushed forward, past Nate. “Let’s go.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. The Hebrew word for “should”/”supposed to be” is “amur”. “Amur” is the name of a river of Siberia, and there is a species of fish named Amur, after the river. If you try to use the word “amur” in conversation in Hebrew, there is a very good chance that you will be promptly cut off with a sharp: “Amur is a kind of fish!” Meaning, one need never ever trust to “should”.
> 
> 2\. “Coffin”: Israeli slang for the rank insignia referred to as “bar” in English.


	4. The Jaws of Wilderness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The last line of the poem _The Road to Arad_ by Ronny Somek refers to Isaiah 11:6 (Vision of the End of Days): “The wolf shall dwell with the sheep, and the leopard shall lie down with the goat-kid.”

_“The white sheep on the road to Arad_  
 _Are like baby teeth in the jaws of wilderness_  
 _War goes on_  
 _The wolf who’ll dwell with sheep is yet unborn”_

[The Road to Arad](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4E4kePWquf), Barry Sakharof

 

* * *

 

Up near the top of the mountain there was a nice, wide plateau, Nadin had said. Three paths led up to the plateau. The first made way through the blade-sharp steppe grass where the slope was mild, cutting through only one boulder-pass. This would have been the easiest path, if Yael was trying to make a good time. Yael didn’t take that path. The second one cut west, arriving above the plateau. Yael didn’t that one, either. She didn’t need to arrive at the very top, and she’d need gear for that sort of climbing. The third path seemed straightforward, but it was misleading. It took on sharper slopes than was strictly necessary, and it avoided patches of shrubbery only to go over boulders. That was the path Yael took.

She needed to convince Corey that she was, actually, hurrying for a date with a satellite. She also needed to convince him that she wasn’t quite as sharp as she was supposed to be, that she wasn’t quite as able. This balance was one of the more difficult facades to maintain. It’d been a long time since it was new to Yael. She’d inserted herself into the Rightist cells when she was a student; later she’d pretended to be a run-of-the-mill Sector Coordinator. She’d never slipped, pretending to be something similar but not quite identical to what she was, in the face of people who knew what both things looked like.

Corey was following her. He was trying to stay unnoticed. He was good. He wouldn’t have stayed alive this long, wouldn’t have done this much damage, if he hadn’t been. She could still tell that he was there. She’d grown up hiking up and down mountains much like this one; even the fossils in the rocks were the same.

That was no reason to not watch where her gaze went and for how long, to not watch her step, her shoulders, the rate of her breathing.

It was always possible to fall.

 

* * *

 

G didn’t wait to see Scott gone before he turned around back to the guard post by the gate.

“I need to borrow your standbys,” G told the Officer of the Watch.

The sergeant in the role did the Marine equivalent of a grin. “Already radioed in for replacements, sir.”

“Good thinking.” G turned to the four Marines he’d be borrowing. “We might have a runner in a minute. He needs to be able to talk. He may not share that opinion.”

“Yes, sir,” answered the Marine who was apparently the senior of the four.

The Marines were fully armed. G and Nate both had handguns; G’s had been borrowed off the DEA in Qabul –  an irony that G was sure Ty wouldn’t appreciate –  and selected by Sam of the available options. Nate’s was his standard-issue. Still, G preferred if it wouldn’t come to bullets.

One of the Marines had gone ahead, taking a position to the side of the cave door. The others took positions along the trail. Ty wouldn’t get anywhere, if he’d try to make a run for it –  which would be a stupid move but then, Ty had gotten involved in this in the first place, and they deliberately had him rattled.

Nate glanced at G, questioning.

G nodded back.

Nate pushed the cave door without knocking first and stepped in. G hung back, effectively blocking the doorway. Ty had straightened up and turned to the door at the sound of Nate’s steps. G hadn’t seen the inside of this specific cave set before, but at the moment it had the distinct look of a room being torn apart.

Ty was searching for something, and he hadn’t found it yet.

“Nate. What are you doing here?”

“Making sure you’re all right,” Nate replied. The concern in his voice was pitch-perfect.

Ty’s eyes travelled to G.

“That doesn’t look like he’s laying down, Nate,” G said. He pitched his own voice reserved and distrustful, very different from the playful irony he would’ve used with Sam. The Bad Cop and the Good Cop weren’t supposed to act in cahoots.

Ty’s eyes kept travelling between them. He was definitely catching up. “I can explain.”

G stepped in and closed the door behind him. “Then let’s hear it.”

 

* * *

 

As soon as they hit more-or-less flat ground again, Sam demanded: “Twenty minutes?”

Nadin had led them up the trail that went above the cave village. Where the trail puttered into a barely-visible goat-path, Nadin had gone up the rock face instead. For Sam this really was just scrambling, but he had damn near a whole foot of height and reach on Nadin. On the other hand, she had seriously not lied when she said she’d reconned the hell out of this trail. She knew precisely what she was reaching for and where it was. The long shadows of dusk slowed her down none at all.

But if they had even one more segment like this one ahead of them, Sam was going to strongly doubt her time estimate.

She jutted her chin up and left towards the rising slope. “North-northeast for ten. Easy run.”

If G was there he’d be protesting her definition of ‘easy’ loudly and at length, but –  Sam thought, eying the slope –  he could do this in under ten minutes, on his own. Nadin’s estimate was solid.

“Let’s go.”

 

* * *

 

“So like I said, he was a bit odd, the last couple of days,” Ty said. He had his wide, pleading gaze turned on Nate. “So when the other agents mentioned that the thumb drive and the canister were missing, I had to wonder –  I wanted to confront Corey, but he wasn’t here, so I thought I’d look around.”

It was a nice story, G would give Ty that. Even without accounting for Ty having had to fabricate it on the spot, having been obviously caught by surprise. It was a nice story; that didn’t mean it didn’t have some convenient holes for G to point out.

“Did you know Ty here personally recommended Corey for this op, Nate?” he said, light and dangerous. Nate turned to face him. “Hand-chose him and everything. I bet when we get access to Corey’s file, it’s going to show several recommendations from Ty here. Makes it kind of hard to believe you’d suspect Corey so easily, Ty. Radioactive materials are serious business.”

Nate’s frown deepened as G spoke. He turned back to Ty. “You did say you’ve known each other a while, Ty. And you were tearing the place up when I came to ask how you were feeling,” he gestured widely. “I don’t think I would’ve suspected a friend this easily.”

Nate didn’t need to name which friend he was thinking about; Corey had done that work for them on Sam’s and G’s first night at this camp. Ty’s eyes went to G.

G said: “And I hope you would’ve.”

Nate gave Ty a split-second to flinch and asked, still soft: “What happened, Ty? What really happened?”

Ty’s eyes went to the door.

“That would be a really stupid decision,” G said. “But you made a whole lot of stupid decisions lately. Here’s what I think happened,” he continued, overriding Ty’s forthcoming objection. “One of the Cartels had approached you. One of you. I don’t know what they said or who they threatened or how much money they promised you. I can promise you that we’ll find out. But the Cartels had approached either Corey or you, and whichever one it was brought in the other guy. I think if we looked at your records we’d see a whole lot of successes against the Cartels that _weren’t_ paying you off, because the one that did, didn’t mind taking out their business rivals. Maybe that’s the Cartel that was involved here. Maybe it wasn’t. Either way? Corey wasn’t supposed to set up that IED – ” Ty’s eyes widened again. “Seriously? You hadn’t figured that one out when you realized Corey must’ve taken the drive and the canister? That’s how he created the opportunity for himself. The interrogators were going _crazy_ about that missing flash drive. But the canister... Now, that would fetch a nice price.” G gave that a moment to sink in. “But we don’t have the canister, and you know and I both know that we can prove you sold out. You, specifically; not just Corey. And that puts you in a really bad place, Ty.”

 

* * *

 

There’d been one steeper portion but it was short, and they traversed it quickly. Otherwise, it was indeed a relatively easy ground.

Nadin broke west and slowed down enough that she could talk. Sam kept pace with her.

“Five minutes my speed this way and it goes flat,” she said. “There are trees.”

Good for cover, but also something to watch out for in the waning light. And where there were trees there’d be branches. “Roger.”

“Got a rock structure above it. I’m going up there.”

“Gun?” he asked. He only had the handgun –  he’d borrowed an M4 when they’d gone out to the grab site, but it’d been returned before they came back up the mountain.

“Knives,” she replied. “Line of sight’s good.”

He could sprint much faster across more-or-less flat ground, but it was a good idea to have someone on high ground if they could –  and Nadin had prepared herself a perch.

Sam nodded. “Sounds like a plan.”

 

* * *

 

Corey was going to come from behind. Other possibilities were extremely unlikely. Still, Yael needed to control when he would attack, at least to a degree. Keeping mobile helped with that. The higher she went, the more the vegetation helped. Up here, and at this light, with the trees’ thin-but-there cover, she doubted Corey would attack before she stopped in place.

He’d need a few seconds. To catch up, if he was going to hit her up close. She didn’t intend to take him out but she could control her fall, if the first blow wouldn’t stun her too much. And if he was going to shoot her, he’d need a few seconds to catch aim.

Yael glanced up, located the top of the mountain, took three more steps forward and stopped. She reached for the satellite phone that she did, actually, bring.

Being shot was going to suck.

 

* * *

 

Nadin sprinted to the base of the rocks and pushed that momentum into beginning to haul herself up. There wasn’t a whole lot of a safety margin on this plan. Right now she was trusting to having practiced the hell out of this short climb, to Hanna’s long legs and to Corey being a coward, and therefore likely to take Iris down from a distance, with a nice easy shot, before coming in for the kill shot.

Almost there.

Gunfire. Single shot.

Nadin hauled herself up to the very top and laid on the ground. It was only a three-second crawl to the edge. There was the clearing, and there was the dark shadow that hadn’t been there before, and had to be Iris. And there, walking briskly, was her target.

She had a knife laced into each boot, 22 centimeters of sharp steel perfectly balanced and almost impossible to miss with. The height would add to the momentum, making up for the distance. In a second the target would stand still and she would get a good enough shot.

Instead, she picked a rock as she rose into a crouch. Yes, she could kill. But that wasn’t what she was supposed to achieve.

 

* * *

 

“If you told us about what you did that would help, Ty,” Nate said softly. “This kind of information can be used to design ops, you know that. It would help undo some of the damage.”

G had had a whole afternoon to watch Ty squirm and hone this little speech. “Personally, I care a whole lot less about drug trafficking,” he said. “I care a whole lot more about weapons trafficking, particularly when radioactive materials are involved. And if you had nothing to do with that, then you’re not NCIS’ problem. And like Nate here just said, the DEA would probably give a damn if you decide to cooperate. So what do you say, Ty?”

Ty stared at him for a long moment. G was just fine with that; he knew that look, and he knew where this was going.

And indeed, when Ty spoke again, he said: “I had _nothing to do_ with anything that went wrong on this op. The IED, the missing items, any of it. And yeah. Corey would. Corey might. I don’t know.” He passed his hand through his hair, grabbing and pulling with too much force. “I’ll tell you what I know.”

 

* * *

 

Corey was on his hands and knees when Sam burst into the clearing. On his knees and rising to his feet, not two paces away from Dunski’s prone body.

Sam sprinted the rest of the distance. He made it there in seconds. Corey had just enough time to look up at him before Sam grabbed him by the back of his shirt and hauled him up. Sam also brought up his opposite knee. Then he pushed Corey down, slamming his face down right above Sam’s knee.

Corey went limp.

Sam dropped his unconscious body unceremoniously and kneeled down next to Dunski instead. Didn’t look like a controlled fall and he’d heard that gunshot, silencer or not, but there was no blood. _Body armor,_ Sam reasoned. Still, he reached to check her pulse at her neck. “Yael?” he asked, deliberately using her first name. He was careful to separate the vowels and the second one came out in his Arabic accent, deep and throaty.

“Hakol beseder,” she muttered back.

Conscious, yes; lucid, he wasn’t going to bet on it yet. Her pulse was maybe possibly a little fast, but only barely; it surprised Sam none at all that she knew how to manage the pain she had to be in. “No, everything is not fine,” he told her. There was still a good chance he’d need to call a CASEVAC on her; it depended on how many ribs seemed to be cracked and how badly. “Meshuga,” he added.

“Ata meshuga; ani meshuga’at.”

Right, _meshuga_ was for a crazy man, and _meshuga’at_ the word for a woman. And as much as he found it was encouraging that she wasn’t hurting badly enough to avoid speaking –  “How about first we get your _dafuk basechel_ ass out of here, and _then_ you can correct my Hebrew. Meshuga’at.”

 

* * *

 

G opened the door and located the Marine waiting on it. “We need a cave for one,” he told him. “Two caves for one, actually.” Since G wasn’t going to consider the possibility that Sam and Nadin may not return with Corey in tow.

“Got one ready.”

G glanced back to make sure Nate had an arm on Ty, and returned his gaze to the Marine. “Lead the way.”

“I could use a recording device,” Nate said as he and Ty stepped out. “Or pen and paper, I don’t have – ”

G switched on his flashlight. They started up the trail.

“Clark would,” G said. “I’ll take care of it.” Nate had best stay with Ty while the iron was still hot. G could fetch note-taking supplies as soon as he’d seen Ty settled into a cave that had only one point of access and a Marine outside the door. And where Clark would be now, G thought, there would also be dinner. Dinner was good, too.

Speaking of interrogators. G glanced up at the sky. It was dark already, and they weren’t going to have any moon for hours. Sam and Nadin should’ve caught up to Yael before the light ran out. They better had.

 

* * *

 

Everyone looked up when G entered the den. He ignored that and looked at Clark. “We need to borrow a recording device or a whole lot of paper.” He glanced at Scott and Nika, who were sitting together. “I hope you saved us some dinner.”

Clark nodded as he pushed himself up to his feet. “Got a recorder you could borrow.”

Nika pointed to the pot still sitting on the field stove. “Kept it warm, even.”

“Does this mean I can make arrangements to get us all off this mountain, now?” Anke asked.

“Yes,” G acknowledged.

“Corey?” Stas asked. He didn’t sound sorry.

G gave him a sharp look. “Corey,” he agreed. “You knew?”

Stas shrugged. “Knew, no.”

But he’d suspected. Stas had had the most interaction with Corey out of everyone, except Ty.

Scott got to it first, though. His voice was quiet as he said: “Ty too.”

“Why don’t you hand me a bowl, gentlemen,” Clark said. “I’ll deliver it to Nate together with that recorder.”

G looked at him. “Nate has rapport,” he said, mildly.

“Didn’t doubt it for a second,” Clark assured him. “I’ll stay off your turf. But I was in a nice cool cave all day, and you weren’t.”

G hesitated. Clark would almost certainly use the opportunity to remind Ty that there were less nice people than Nate that he could be talking to, but he doubted Clark would seriously interfere. And while this had always been Nate’s least favorite part of the job, G could also acknowledge that it wouldn’t make much difference to Nate who made the delivery.

“All right.”

 

* * *

 

Once he wolfed down two bowls of whatever was in that pot (which had indeed turned out better for Stas’ involvement) and half an MRE (because Sam wasn’t there to bitch at him for eating that much sodium when he didn’t have to), G headed back up to Corey’s and Ty’s cave. Corey could’ve hidden the drive and the canister anywhere, yes, but if he didn’t expect to get caught or searched, then putting them among his own things was the best option. That Ty had found nothing didn’t mean much; he’d hardly had any time to search, and he’d been panicking.

The beam of G’s flashlight caught the legs of the Marine stationed at the cave’s door. He’d forgotten to give that order earlier, but the Marines had apparently picked up his slack anyway. G paused, considered, and then turned around and headed to the gate.

It was the same sergeant, but with a fresh complement of standbys.

“I’m going to be borrowing two of your standbys again,” he told the sergeant. “I have a feeling you were expecting that.” There were six standbys, not four. The Marines, much like the civilians, wanted this assignment over and done with.

“I don’t know what ever gave you the idea, sir,” the sergeant deadpanned. He waved two of the Marines over.

A third raised his hand but didn’t step forward. Not a Marine, G realized: it was the corpsman.

“Figured I’d might be needed up here,” the corpsman said.

“Good thinking,” G acknowledged, “but let’s hope we won’t need that.”

 

* * *

 

They took the easy way back down. Iris could walk, if slowly and carefully; Hanna was fussing so bad that Nadin had ended up asking how many and how old, because nobody fussed over other people like that who wasn’t a parent. That shut him up, which also had the side benefit of not giving Iris any more verbal serves to return. Cracked ribs or not, Iris was managing better than Corey. He was probably concussed, what between being stoned and having his face half-broken.

When they were only a few minutes away from the top of the camp as a non-injured person walked, Nadin pushed Corey down on the ground and looked at the other two. “Back in a few.”

“Good idea,” Hanna acknowledged.

Nadin ran down to camp.

She didn’t need to look around for Callen. There was light spilling out of the cave that Corey and Ty had shared, and there was a Marine standing in front of the open door. Nadin left her flashlight on, communicating her approach. Three paces from the door she glanced at the Marine, decided that she didn’t have the patience for this, and called out: “Callen!”

Callen stood up and came to the door. The Marine stepped to the side, letting her in. There were two more Marines inside. It looked like they and Callen were cataloguing the room.

“Could use a hand or two up the trail,” she said. “Got cracked ribs and a concussion.”

“Iris?” he asked.

“The ribs. Concussion’s Corey’s.”

Callen’s expression relaxed minutely, probably at the tacit confirmation that his partner was fine. He nodded. “Let’s go.”

 

* * *

 

“You are going to let Doc Velasquez give you something for the pain and then you are going to _sleep,_ ” Sam said as the five of them entered the Israelis’ cave. “And if you even _think_ about arguing, I am radioing that CASEVAC.”

Dunski shot him an irritated glare and said nothing. Nadin helped her down to the bedroll.

“Yeah, I don’t think she’s going to argue, Sam,” G said. It would be at least a few moments before Velasquez got around to them; scumbag or not, Corey was bleeding and decidedly concussed, whereas Dunski was lucid and just needed to not be an idiot about things, Sam’s threats of CASEVAC aside.

“Oh, don’t you start,” Sam said. “She’s worse than you are.”

“You started it,” Nadin informed him. She was digging through the bags.

“I started it?” Sam exclaimed.

“Yes. Fuck.” She seemed to have found what she was looking for, but she didn’t seem happy. “They had years and they still didn’t put a pull-lid on those things, really?” She turned around without getting up, holding out a small black tin about the size of a tuna can; it had Hebrew letters on it. “Anybody got a can opener?”

Dunski, G noted, perked up at the sight of the tin.

“What’s in the can?” he asked.

“It’s sweet and you can have some if you’re useful,” Dunski said.

G opened his mouth to retort, thought better of it and said nothing.

Sam snorted and tossed Nadin his Swiss Army Knife.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Meshuga” (singular male), “meshuga’at” ( singular female) - crazy, insane, out of one’s mind. “Dafuk basechel” (singular male) - “Fucked in the head”.


	5. Safe & Sound

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So if you’re in regular service, your coffee kit is likely to be the plainest tupperware, house coffee (Elit bag held closed with a plain office rubber band), sugar and cardamom (sandwich bags or smaller plainest tupperwares); Yael may well still have one of these in her kitchen cupboard. (Less spartan though no less utilitarian kits [also happen](http://msc.wcdn.co.il/w/w-700/972069-5.jpg).) And [then](http://www.amgazit.co.il/pictures/22019%282%29.jpg) [there](http://www.rikushet.co.il/Uploads/items/7296113064050.jpg) [are](http://gifts.elite.co.il/files/4ad17f8f47c33118acd859378f379354/imagecache/singlepackagecut/16_3.jpg) the hiking-gear kits; Yael brought one of those.

_“As I stand in the way_  
 _And I’m lost on the ground_  
 _I know I am safe and sound”_

[Safe and Sound](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkDhK6VgyWo), Maya Isacowitz

 

* * *

 

Nate wasn’t sure how late it was when he finally left Ty’s cave. It was late enough that, as soon as he didn’t have _work_ to occupy himself with, his head started swimming.

He hadn’t expected to find Sam in the long cave connecting the smaller ones – alcoves, really – that they were using as holding cells, waiting among the guarding Marines.

“Got the flash drive,” Sam said. “Corey had it on him. Still looking for the canister.”

That implied that either Corey wasn’t cooperating or he was in no state to be talking and, as much as Nate liked Sam and G, he also knew them. “Is he dead?”

Sam didn’t quite shrug. “No.” Catching Nate’s look, he added: “I might have knocked him out a little harder than intended.”

Sam was not actually prone to doing that, when he was aiming for less-lethal. However, he didn’t seem disturbed. “What did he do?” Nate asked and, because he did know Sam’s sense of humor, add: “Other than be a traitor.”

Sam scowled. “Tried to shoot Iris at point blank.”

That would do it, all right. “She okay?”

“Better than she has any right to be.”

Nate thought about that phrasing, considered the set of Sam’s shoulders, and massaged his forehead. “Can we talk about that tomorrow?”

“It’s already tomorrow.”

Nate was not up for handling that attitude. “The other tomorrow. I have a full recorder that’s going to need to be transcribed. Tomorrow.”

“Of course. C’mon.”

Nate let Sam usher him out into the night. He was, actually, just tired enough to welcome Sam’s brand of fretfulness. Which, judging by that last comment, and since Sam had no one better to fret over – “Callen still searching for the canister?” Nate asked.

“Yeah. At least he’s letting the Marines catch some Zs.”

It made more sense to conduct the search in daylight but, since Callen wasn’t going to sleep anyway, his not keeping anyone else up was the best alternative.

“We’ll find it,” Nate said.

“Yeah,” Sam replied. His tone turned more grim as he added: “Whether we need to take this place apart or be a little extra convincing.”

 

* * *

 

G wasn’t sure why he ended up at the Israelis’ door when he finally gave up on finding the canister by flashlight. He should go to sleep; he was actually beginning to feel tired. Nadin probably wasn’t going to sink a knife in his throat if he loitered on her doorstep, but G doubted he’d be welcome.

The door opened. Nadin’s shadow was backlit by the gas stove. She didn’t say anything as she moved from the doorway, tacitly inviting him in.

He stepped in.

“Don’t expect any more halva.”

“Coffee at this hour?”

“Tea. Liberated some sugar, too.”

“When you say ‘some’...”

“You start caring all of a sudden?”

“Only if it’s not sweet enough,” he admitted after a moment. “She sleeping okay?” He copied Nadin’s example in speaking very quietly. The stove gave quite a bit of light, but apparently Nadin wasn’t worried about that.

“Yeah.”

The water reached boiling. Nadin added the leaves – at least half a dozen different bags – and reduced the flame a little, keeping it at a simmer. G could pick the notes of some kind of mint as well as something lemony and – he thought – perhaps chicory, but that was as much as he got.

“I’m not seeing any sugar,” he said.

She spared a second to stare at him before demonstratively returning her attention to the pot. “Only after it’s boiled. Or it ruins the taste.”

“You’d love my boss. She’s particular about her tea, too.” He reconsidered. “Though she’d say that this is tisane, not tea. Emphatically say.”

“What’s that word again?”

“Tisane. Fancy word for tea that isn’t actually made from tea leaves.”

Nadin huffed softly. “I’d switch out your boss’s fancy tea leaves and see if she tastes the difference. _She’d_ like your boss.” Nadin jerked her head in Yael’s direction. “Princess is drinking _Nachle_ , and all I want is Elit.”

G wasn’t even going to ask.

“You know her,” Nadin stated after a few moments.

“Yeah,” he admitted. “Not very well.” He considered Nadin. “You know her?”

“By name.” G didn’t think she meant _Iris Raz._ This guess was confirmed when Nadin continued: “She was a legend before I was out of training.”

That meant that Nadin was younger than G had thought. Sam needed to not know that. G had probably been even younger, when he got into this life, but – this life was often _safer_ than G’s childhood had been, for the simple reason that nowadays there was someone tasked with keeping him alive.

The tea began bubbling again. Nadin reduced the flame further and added sugar, stirring carefully.

“Enough sugar?” she asked dryly.

“Yeah,” he admitted. “I’m impressed.”

“We should make it like this for Hanna for breakfast.”

“You sure you want to go there?”

“Tell me you weren’t thinking about finding a camera for when he spits it out, and I’ll call you a liar.”

 

* * *

 

She woke up to a pounding headache, a burning, stabbing pain in her back as she breathed, daylight against her eyelids, and assorted sore muscles. Yael kept her eyes closed and her breathing even and waited for her body to settle. Right. She’d gotten shot, and she’d needed the sleep.

She also needed water. The headache indicated that she was probably just shy of dehydration. It was eight to ten in the morning, judging by the air temperature. She’d been borderline on water when she fell asleep, and she’d slept ten hours or more.

Breakfast and talking to the medic were also priorities, but water came first.

She opened her eyes. There was a canteen of treated water within reach. Beyond it, she could see Nate Getz sitting with his back against the wall, idly playing with some pebbles. There was a covered plate not very far from him, next to the cave wall.

Getz’s expression shifted as he noticed she was awake. He hadn’t been left there as more than a babysitter, she thought; for a split-second he considered waiting on her to speak first, but then he thought better of it.

“Good morning,” he said.

“Good morning,” she replied. Speaking wasn’t any more fun than it’d been the night before. She reached for the canteen.

Getz’s expression flickered again when he considered asking if she wanted to sit up. Instead, he asked: “Breakfast or Velasquez?”

“Breakfast.”

 

* * *

 

If he waited another hour, G knew, Doc Velasquez would come up the mountain together with the midday guard rotation and lunch. Rico Vega – Corey – had been in a bad state the night before, and it was entirely possible that he wasn’t quite fit for an interview just yet.

That was fine with G. He wasn’t sure this would develop into an actual interview anyway.

Vega glanced up when G strode in and winced. It was a nasty angle at which to look up at someone, G knew. He flopped down on the floor in front of Vega.

“We just found the canister,” G said. “Thought you might want to know. That was a real nice bush to hide it under. Very thorny. We also found the missing thumb drive on you last night. And Ty has been talking, which really shouldn’t surprise you too much. Oh, that’s right, _McCormick_ has been talking.”

Vega blinked hard, expression becoming even blanker than before. The significance of Ty’s real name hadn’t been lost on him. There was no Prisoner’s Dilemma, here; McCormick wasn’t backing Vega up, and was likely to pin as much as possible on Vega – which Vega had to understand.

G didn’t say _Game over._ People like Vega never thought that the game could be over. To say _Game Over_ out loud would damage and possibly destroy the fragile rapport G had.

They didn’t need Vega to cooperate, not really, but it would make things a lot easier.

“Sometimes we’re Scheherazade, Rico,” he said softly. “Think about that.” Then he got up, turned around and left.

 

* * *

 

“You didn’t call last night,” were the first words out of Eric’s mouth.

“Eric, it’s oh-three-hundred on the West Coast, what on earth are you doing in the office?”

The silence on the other end of the line was deafening.

Sam imagined Eric’s expression – hurt, insulted, or some mixture thereof – and sighed. “We’re fine,” he said. “We caught the bad guys, we recovered the missing items, we’re all good here.”

“Thank goodness. I mean – that’s good to hear. I have some files here that Nell left for you – ”

Sam cut him off. “We don’t need those right now. But what we do need, since I happened to catch you, is travel arrangements. The DEA will want to know that there’ll be two detainees in need of escort on the next flight to Qabul.”

“On it. I’ll have your flight tickets waiting for you, too.”

“Thanks, Eric.”

“No problem.”

 

* * *

 

Nate glanced at the way Doc Velasquez strode into the family room cave and put down his plate. The corpsman looked like someone had tried to force-feed him a lemon.

“I can’t find the bossy ones,” he declared.

Nate got up and said, over the chorus of snorts: “They’re busy being bossy elsewhere.”

He followed Velasquez outside.

“She can make the car ride to Zaranj,” Velasquez said. “Fuck, she can walk down this mountain on fucking foot, with that attitude.”

“But you don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“She doesn’t _need_ to. Helo ride to Qandahar takes as long as the car ride to Zaranj and it would agitate those busted ribs a whole lot less. Just because she’s more stoic than half of those Marines –”

“I’ll take care of it,” Nate promised. Or he’ll have Sam take care of it.

“Should’ve CASEVACed her last night,” Velasquez muttered.

Nate waited.

Velasquez considered him for a long moment before nodding. “Other guy’s fit to transport. Shouldn’t hit his head against any more hard surfaces, is all.”

Vega had set the IED that had injured Velasquez’ Marines. Nate hadn’t expected more than perfunctory professionalism on Velasquez’ part, if that. “Thank you.”

Velasquez waved a hand dismissively. “Just make sure she takes the goddamned painkillers.”

 

* * *

 

Dunski didn’t protest the CASEVAC. G was beginning to wonder if she ever had, or if Sam’s grumbling of last night had been just Sam being Sam. And if she was being stingy with the painkillers – well, then, G would be too, in her place. Sometimes pain was better than what the drugs did to you. And Sam, of all people, didn’t get to lecture anyone about _that._ He would’ve probably been more of an idiot had it been him with the busted ribs, and G would’ve let him walk down the mountain and laughed.

Then again, Sam’s main beef with Dunski wasn’t how she was managing her cracked ribs but how and why she’d ended up with cracked ribs in the first place, and on that matter, G was in complete agreement with Sam.

“There is never a good reason –”

“Don’t say that, big guy, I deliberately got myself shot –”

“ _Not_ helping, G –”

“Yes helping, Sam, because if you make too general a statement you’re just giving her an easy opening to take your argument apart. So yes, there is such a thing as a justified reason to put yourself in the position to be shot,” G continued, turning back to Yael. “This usually includes knowing for a _fact_ that the other person is using blanks or, if you have to get yourself shot by someone who does actually wants you dead, having backup who is actually _there_ and not hypothetical _._ ”

“You were there,” she pointed out.

“And what if we weren’t?” Sam demanded. “No, that was _not_ a reasonable safety margin last night.”

“You’re smart enough to calculate everything as precisely as you did last night, you’re smart enough to know precisely how everyone’s going to react, then you are more than smart enough to come up with a better plan,” G stated.

“Yes,” Sam said, emphatically.

“I’m still alive.”

“You’re missing the point!” Sam exclaimed. Dunski’s blank look hadn’t wavered. G knew that expression of Sam’s, lips pursed and cheeks puffed; big guy was about to blow up. And blow up he did: “I could throw you in a river!”

Dunski made a short, strange sound, followed by a quick gasp of pain. It took two more repetitions before G realized that she was laughing – which was a really painful, really bad thing to do when you had cracked ribs. And not only was she laughing, but she couldn’t seem to make herself stop.

“You did _not_ take that much painkillers,” G told her, and then turned to Sam. “What the hell is so funny about throwing people in rivers? Or has she gone officially insane?”

Sam seemed as flummoxed as he was. “It’s a sort of an urban legend, a story passed among Special Forces,” he said. “An Israeli _sayeret_ team went on a raid deep behind enemy lines. When they reached their target, they realized that their intel was wrong, and there was no way they could complete their objective. The team leader decided to proceed anyhow. A second team was dispatched to get their ass out of the fire. It so happened that the second team’s leader was the older brother of the first team’s leader. Somehow, the two teams managed to get out of there in one piece, and even complete the objective. They regrouped and camped down by a river. The second team’s leader asked his little brother what the hell he was thinking. And the first team’s leader replied that he knew it would have to be a two-team job, and he knew that the quickest way to get a second team was to go in, and since he knew that the team sent to rescue his would be his older brother’s, he adapted the plan around that, and everything had actually gone precisely according to plan.”

Meanwhile, as Sam spoke, Dunski had managed to get her laughter under control and was breathing more-or-less regularly again. There was a note of suppressed mirth in her voice as she said: “And then Uncle Yoni threw Uncle Michael in the river.”

G stared at her. So did Sam.

“You are not serious.”

“I thought your family were spies, not soldiers!”

“That’s the other side of the family,” she replied.

“You have got to be fucking kidding.” G reconsidered. “Actually, no. This explains so much.”

“Don’t you go encouraging her.”

“Sam, I don’t know how to break it to you, but I don’t think what I say actually matters.”

Dunski shrugged, very carefully. “Mom and Aunt Ilana always did agree that God had clearly swapped me and my cousin in the womb.”

Ilana was Yael’s aunt that Hettie had worked with in the 1980s. And Ilana was a _Dunski._ That meant that she and the clearly insane Michael –

“Seriously?” G asked. “What is this, the Israeli Super-Spy Breeding Program?”

“I like you, so I won’t tell my mom you said that,” Dunski replied. She turned to Sam: “But I’m sure Uncle Yoni will throw me into the nearest body of water for you. Possibly off a cliff.”

Sam gave her the Face again.

 

* * *

 

The sounds of an argument made Nate hesitate, and then retreat his steps, knock on the Israelis’ door and push it open. “Everything all right?” he asked carefully.

Nadin glared at him from where she was crouched by the stove. “Do you know how to make coffee?”

That would explain the raised voices. Of all the possible conversations for him to put himself in the middle of. “No,” he admitted. “But I can referee?”

In all likelihood he’d just gotten himself killed.

“She doesn’t even make coffee like a Golanchik, she makes coffee like a tankist,” Dunski said.

“Shut up, tzfonit,” Nadin snapped back. “Can you follow directions?” she demanded of Nate.

“Yes,” he admitted after a pause. It occurred to him that Nadin hadn’t spent as many hours in one place – in one place indoors – in the week she’d been on this camp, as she did that day. That was probably not helping matters any.

“Good.” Nadin pushed herself up. “You make coffee.”

Nate stepped to the side, letting her storm out, and then stepped in.

“Leave it open, this place needs air.”

“It’s boiling hot outside.”

Dunski just gave him a tired, irritated glare.

“I’ll leave it open,” he said. He kneeled by the stove. The pot seemed to only have water in it. “What do I do?”

“Let it cool off a little. Coffee, teaspoon and _hel_ in the kit.”

Nate hesitated for a second, and then took the pot off the flame, putting it on the stone floor. He reduced the flame, also for safety concerns: Nadin had it turned all the way up. There was a grey ballistic nylon bag within reach from the stove, which Nate assumed was the coffee kit. He unzipped it. Somehow, it wasn’t surprising that Israelis would make orderly kits with room for an Alpine-grade field stove, a set of stackable tins for coffee and assorted ingredients and small glasses in a protective wrap. The teaspoons were velcroed to the cover’s inside. He released one, pulled out the coffee and located the smaller tin with the cardamom.

Dunski was speaking as little as possible, he noticed as he upped the flame a little, returned the pot to the stove, measured in coffee and cardamom, and stirred just so before reducing the flame again. It was so difficult to tell how she was doing.

“I’m sorry,” he said abruptly. “I can’t –” It felt like disrespect, worrying this way, second-guessing this way. “Maybe it’s a bad habit after all.”

“It’s not.”

 

* * *

 

“That’s my ledge.”

“I don’t see your name on it.”

“Think it’ll break your head if I roll you off it?”

Callen hadn’t figured out a reply in the time it took her to complete the climb. Nadin sat down next to him. “Don’t you have watersports to play?”

“Waterboarding,” he said. “Watersports are something else entirely. And we don’t –”

She cut him off. “Abu Ghraib.”

“CIA and Army.”

“Say you wouldn’t.”

“Would you?”

She shrugged. “It doesn’t work.”

After a long moment, he said: “Pity.”

“He’s not talking?”

“No.”

“Do you need him to?”

“No,” he admitted after a brief hesitation. “It’ll make things easier, though.”

“More fun for him if he doesn’t talk,” she pointed out.

“Shit,” he said after a while.

“Realized you don’t actually have him?”

“Realized I don’t know how to get down.”

 

* * *

 

Dunski liked her coffee strong. It wasn’t the kind of ‘strong’ that sailors would make, though. “I think I’m ruined for coffee machines,” Nate admitted after a few sips. He probably was; he doubted he’d ever get into the habit of spicing his coffee with cardamom, but he knew better than to argue that point with someone who did not consider coffee to be _coffee_ without it.

“Percolators.” Dunski loaded the word with disdain. “Not coffee machines.”

He allowed himself to roll his eyes. “Israel is one of two countries is the world that had kicked out Starbucks, yes, I’m _aware._ ” He was yet to meet an Israeli who did not bring that up as a point of pride. It was fairly amusing, as reasons for national pride went. “And also, I tasted your instant coffee.”

“Except we admit that it is not actually coffee.”

“You deride it.” _And you love it anyway_ ; but he couldn’t say that. “And yet you drink it.”

“You deride yourself for caring too much. And you hang on to it with your fingernails.”

It was surprisingly easy to continue looking at her, and not looking down at his coffee. Dunski consistently showed nothing. It made Nate wonder if she even had spontaneous expressions of emotion, anymore, and that thought made his heart ache. “Did I walk into this, or did you just improvise it?”

“Takes two.”

And that was a non-answer if he ever heard one. He wasn’t about to call that out, though.

“Why did you convert to field?” she asked.

“I wanted to.” And badly; he’d fought for it for years, despite that everyone seemed determined to discourage him.

“Why?”

“Because staying behind seemed unfair.” He believed in that – still – even if it made him feel a little silly – still. _Recurring theme,_ he admitted to himself.

“It’s a good reason to make it. But don’t try to prove yourself too hard.” She closed her eyes, indicating that she was done talking for a while. “ _That_ will kill you.”

Implied was: _Worrying won’t._

 

* * *

 

Nobody was outside, which surprised G none at all. These were the hottest, worst hours of the day, even accounting for the mountain-breeze and for the overhead nets. Cave NCIS was empty. He wasn’t looking for Nate, anyway; Sam he found all the way down by the gate post.

“You missed the going away party,” Sam informed him.

“No, I didn't,” G replied. If he had, Sam wouldn't sound so smug. It wasn’t like the hypothetical party could have any cake for G to miss out on.

“Well, you missed the first going away party.”

G considered the phrasing, and asked: “We have an itinerary?”

“Oh yes we do. Two hours after first light tomorrow it should be as if this camp had never existed.”

“Didn't anybody tell you that ‘should‘’ is a kind of fish?”

Sam’s expression was totally worth the hell he was going to give G for this. “Thanks a lot, G. Now you’ve jinxed us.”

“No, now you’ve jinxed us. Not that I believe in jinxes, because that would be silly and irrational. Like, say, Reiki.”

“You laugh now.”

Sam was definitely getting back at him for this, and it was beginning to look serious. G changed tact. “How's our itinerary looking?”

“You know what Eric gets like when he feels like he’d been left behind.”

G snorted.

“Which reminds me,” Sam continued, a little too smoothly, “you really do want to pick up the phone next time. Hettie says she's forgotten the sound of your voice.”

Well, that was a quick comeback. And the problem was, Hettie was entirely capable. Except – “You did _not_ speak to Hettie. It‘s the middle of the night –”

Sam smiled serenely.

“I hate you,” G informed him.

Sam’s smile didn’t waver as he replied: “I love you, too.”

 

* * *

 

“I have no idea how you can do this,” G declared as Nate handed him the bowl of dinner. “The weather sucks, the food is awful –”

“Doesn’t sound much different from LA,” Nate replied mildly.

“Are you kidding? I’d kill for pancakes right now.”

If Sam had been there, Nate knew, G would be more likely to name something like fish tacos, or perhaps even TV dinners. But Sam wasn’t there. They were standing outside, near the camp wall. Most everyone was in the family room cave. Sam, being Sam, had taken it upon himself to bring dinner to Dunski.

“Are you coming to Zaranj with us?”

“Yes.”

“And to Qabul?”

“Also yes.”

“And then you’re splitting off to, where? Syria?”

“I don’t think it’s on this month’s itinerary,” Nate deadpanned. Or tried to. By G’s blink, he didn’t succeed.

“Next month’s, then?” G’s words seemed as if he was ignoring Nate’s momentary weakness but his tone was light, again. He and Sam had both joked about Nate’s infrequent home visits, their first night in camp, but the matter had been set aside since. And now, too, G wasn’t going to push.

Sometimes that was what friends did, Nate knew: sometimes friendship called for refraining from asking, not for making sure that someone was all right. And this, Nate thought, was the way G Callen treated friends – as much as he had them – rather than the way he treated junior agents and, sometimes, the support staff. At some point over the last few days, after a year and a half and two joint jobs – now three – since Nate had left the safety of the LA office, the way Callen treated him had shifted. This wasn’t approval, but it wasn’t the semblance of approval that made Nate’s breathe come out in a long exhale.

“I’ll see if I can’t send you a postcard,” he said.

 

* * *

 

Now that he was at the cave’s door, this seemed like one of the worst ideas he’d had in a while. Problem was, she’d already seen him. He couldn’t back out now without making it even worse for himself.

“What?” G asked as he stepped into the cave. “Suddenly you don’t know what I’m going to say before I say it?”

“Do you want me to give you a reason to turn around and storm off?”

“I don’t like being played with,” he said, sharply.

He could think up half a dozen different retorts to that one. He really shouldn’t have been surprised that she’d come up with something he hadn’t expected at all. “Get married, Callen. You don’t need someone to come home to any less than anyone else.”

He really did almost storm off at that. Perhaps it was her tone that made him pause long enough to think. She sounded weary.

“You married?” he demanded.

That gave her a pause, for some reason. “I do not think I will sleep with people on the job when I have someone waiting at home, even if the two mean different things.”

That was far more of an answer than he expected. After a few seconds, G sat down, still picking apart at her words. Most of it was things that he wasn’t going to talk about, except: “‘When’. You said ‘when’, not ‘if’.”

“Stable home life is a job requirement.”

That was so completely upside-down to the reality G knew. This line of work made for people who were difficult in relationships, and for conditions unconducive to having a relationship in. Working among people who considered stable relationships to be exceptions rather than expectations was something G considered an advantage. “Seriously.”

“I could quote you the comparative burnout rates.”

“Spare me.”

After a moment he said, again: “I don’t appreciate being played.”

“That was the point.”

That made no sense, except it did. “Was that supposed to make you look less creepy? Because let me tell you, it achieved the polar opposite.”

Her expression lightened a bit. Maybe. “Go away already and let me sleep.”

“Your fault for getting yourself shot,” he told her, but he did leave.

 

* * *

 

Nadin took the field stove out to the central open space in front of the gate, and brought the big pot from the living-room cave before some enterprising Marine decided to reclaim it sooner than she agreed with. It was sunrise and the camp’s small population was very much up and about. The helo would arrive within an hour. Once Dunski and she were off, everyone else would make it the long way to Zaranj. Next stop for everyone else was probably Qabul, but other people’s travel plans weren’t her headache.

In the meantime, it was the best time of day for tea.

 


End file.
